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Study of current conduction mechanism and resistive switching stability in the PVdF-HFP-based memristor

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Abstract

The electrochemical metallization (ECM) memory using polymer materials has attracted much attention for the development of future information devices. Particularly, the study of ionic transportation and current conduction mechanism in the metal–insulator-metal (MIM) structured device is crucial to realize the filament growth behaviour associated with the resistive switching memory characteristics. This work demonstrates the MIM device using the poly (vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoro propylene) (PVdF-HFP) sandwiched between an electrochemically active Ag electrode and an inert electrode (Au). The asymmetric electrode configuration of the Au/Ag/PVdF-HFP/Au device revealed bipolar-resistive switching behaviour for more than 102 continuous sweep cycles with a low SET/RESET voltage of + 1.26 V/ − 0.35 V, respectively. Note that, the device exhibited remarkably higher ON/OFF resistance ratio of ~ 107 with high data retention time for more than 104 s. Analysis of current conduction in the Au/Ag/PVdF-HFP/Au device shows that the electron transport is a combined effect of space charge limited (I ∝ Vα, α ~ 2), trap-filled charge limited (I ∝ Vα, α > 2), and ohmic conduction mechanism (I ∝ Vα, α ~ 1), which majorly altered between one cycle to another. Depth profiling X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirms that the conducting filament growth process varies from the initial to the final sweep cycle. It interprets a cycle-to-cycle variation in the resistive switching behaviour and its stability majorly constitutes by the variation of current conduction mechanism in the PVdF-HFP-based memristor.

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Acknowledgements

Dr. KK would like to thank Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) and Department of Science & Technology (DST), India to carry out this work under early career research (ECR/2017/002615) and DST inspire faculty scheme (DST/INSPIRE/04/2016/000246).

Funding

This work was supported by Department of Science & Technology (DST), India through the DST inspire faculty scheme (DST/INSPIRE/04/ 2016/000246), and Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) through the Early Career Research award (ECR/2017/002615).

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  1. Corrosion and Material Protection Division, CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi, Tamil, Nadu-630003, India

    Karthik Krishnan & Saranyan Vijayaraghavan

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The authors KK and SV have contributed for preparing the manuscript. The materials preparation, device fabrication, data collection, interpretation, and the manuscript construction was performed by KK. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript for publication.

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Krishnan, K., Vijayaraghavan, S. Study of current conduction mechanism and resistive switching stability in the PVdF-HFP-based memristor. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 211 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-09697-2

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