Electrical switching and memory phenomena observed in redox-gradient dendrimer sandwich devices

Abstract

We report on the fabrication of dendrimer sandwich devices with electrical switching and memory properties. The storage media is consisted of a redox-gradient dendrimer layer sandwiched in organic barrier thin films. The dendrimer layer acts as potential well where redox-state changes and consequent electrical transitions of the embedded dendrimer molecules are expected to be effectively triggered and retained, respectively. Experimental results indicated that electrical switching could be reproducibly obtained in such dendrimer sandwiches upon a threshold bias voltage. After switching, the device conductivity could be increased more than three orders of magnitude, which can keep stable for several days in ambient conditions. Our work demonstrates the possibility of using solid-state redox-gradient dendrimer films as hopeful information storage media.