Performance Enhancement of Solution-Processed Organic Memories by Exploiting Synergistic Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Composites

Organic–inorganic hybrid composites (HCs) comprising functionalized 2D materials have been given exceptional importance and have been actively employed as memory materials toward development of next-generation resistive memory devices. Herein, we use in situ functionalized rGO–ZnO HC nanofillers for the first time and report the improved memory performances such as a very low operating voltage and a high current ON/OFF ratio along with good repeatability. Hybrid polymer nanocomposite (HPNC) devices were fabricated by dispersing hydrothermally synthesized rGO–ZnO HCs in PMMA that surpass most organic resistive memory and are comparable to inorganic resistive memory in terms of device performances. The memory characteristics of the HPNCs have been modulated and optimized by varying the proportion of hybrid nanofillers. Highly stable and repeatable memory phenomena have been observed for all the devices and the switching voltages were modulated systematically. Very low switching voltages in the range of ∼−0.60 to −0.74 V and high current I ON / I OFF ratio of ≈ 10 6 have been obtained for the device with the loading of 0.5 wt % hybrid nanofillers. The carrier transport mechanism through the devices have been elucidated with the help of a suitable energy band diagram. Our study implies that HPNC materials are excellent candidates for organic memory application and provide useful information about the underlying carrier transport mechanism associated with resistive switching phenomena.