The operational mechanism of ferroelectric-driven organic resistive switches

The availability of a reliable memory element is crucial for the fabrication of ‘plastic’ logic circuits. We use numerical simulations to show that the switching mechanism of ferroelectric-driven organic resistive switches is the stray field of the polarized ferroelectric phase. The stray field modulates the charge injection from a metallic electrode into the organic semiconductor, switching the diode from injection limited to space charge limited. The modeling rationalizes the previously observed exponential dependence of the on/off ratio on injection barrier height. We find a lower limit of about 50 nm for the feature size that can be used in a crossbar array, translating into a rewritable memory with an information density of the order of 1 Gb/cm2.

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► The switching of ferroelectric-driven organic resistive switches is elucidated.
► Stray fields of the ferroelectric modulate the charge injection barrier.
► Numerical calculations reproduce experimental findings.
► A 50 nm minimum feature size translates to an information density of 1 Gb/cm2.