TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantum tunnelling and charge accumulation in organic ferroelectric memory diodes
AU - Ghittorelli, Matteo
AU - Lenz, Thomas
AU - Sharifi Dehsari, Hamed
AU - Zhao, Dong
AU - Asadi, Kamal
AU - Blom, Paul W.M.
AU - Kovács-Vajna, Zsolt M.
AU - De Leeuw, Dago M.
AU - Torricelli, Fabrizio
PY - 2017/6/12
Y1 - 2017/6/12
N2 - Non-volatile memories - providing the information storage functionality - are crucial circuit components. Solution-processed organic ferroelectric memory diodes are the non-volatile memory candidate for flexible electronics, as witnessed by the industrial demonstration of a 1 kbit reconfigurable memory fabricated on a plastic foil. Further progress, however, is limited owing to the lack of understanding of the device physics, which is required for the technological implementation of high-density arrays. Here we show that ferroelectric diodes operate as vertical field-effect transistors at the pinch-off. The tunnelling injection and charge accumulation are the fundamental mechanisms governing the device operation. Surprisingly, thermionic emission can be disregarded and the on-state current is not space charge limited. The proposed model explains and unifies a wide range of experiments, provides important design rules for the implementation of organic ferroelectric memory diodes and predicts an ultimate theoretical array density of up to 10 12 bit cm 2.
AB - Non-volatile memories - providing the information storage functionality - are crucial circuit components. Solution-processed organic ferroelectric memory diodes are the non-volatile memory candidate for flexible electronics, as witnessed by the industrial demonstration of a 1 kbit reconfigurable memory fabricated on a plastic foil. Further progress, however, is limited owing to the lack of understanding of the device physics, which is required for the technological implementation of high-density arrays. Here we show that ferroelectric diodes operate as vertical field-effect transistors at the pinch-off. The tunnelling injection and charge accumulation are the fundamental mechanisms governing the device operation. Surprisingly, thermionic emission can be disregarded and the on-state current is not space charge limited. The proposed model explains and unifies a wide range of experiments, provides important design rules for the implementation of organic ferroelectric memory diodes and predicts an ultimate theoretical array density of up to 10 12 bit cm 2.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020754205&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/ncomms15841
DO - 10.1038/ncomms15841
M3 - Article
C2 - 28604664
AN - SCOPUS:85020754205
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 8
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
M1 - 15741
ER -