Dependence of nonvolatile memory characteristics on curing temperature for polymer memory-cell embedded with Au nanocrystals in poly(N-vinylcarbazole)

We investigated the dependence of nonvolatile memory characteristics on curing temperature for a polymer nonvolatile 4F2 memory-cell embedded with Au nanocrystals in poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK). The curing temperature is an important factor for determining the size, shape, and isolation presence of Au nanocrystals embedded in the PVK layer. When the curing temperature rises above 300 °C, ∼8-nm spherical Au nanocrystals are uniformly distributed and well isolated. Thus, the nonvolatile memory-cell demonstrated a memory margin of (Ion/Ioff) of 9.8 × 101, retention time of 1 × 105 s and more than 100 program/erase endurance cycles.