Resistance switching in two-terminal ferroelectric-semiconductor lateral heterostructures

Developing new memory concepts and devices has been one of the most productive fields of research for the past decade. There is a need for a nonvolatile memory technology based on resistance switching. An ideal memory element is a bistable rectifying diode that enables realization of a simple crossbar memory array with highest areal bit density. Ferroelectrics have been suggested to code digital information due to their intrinsic and stable binary electronic polarization. However, realization of a ferroelectric bistable rectifying diode is challenging since ferroelectricity and electrical conductivity are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist in a single compound. As a solution, lateral ferroelectric-semiconductor heterostructures have been suggested for the realization of ferroelectric diodes. Bistable rectifying diodes and their respective nonvolatile crossbar memory arrays based on ferroelectric-semiconductor lateral heterostructures have been successfully demonstrated with organic ferroelectrics and organic semiconductors. The present review focuses on the resistance switching in ferroelectric-semiconductor heterostructure rectifying diodes based on polymers and discusses the latest developments over the last decade.