Electrical bistable properties of hybrid device based on SiO2 modified-ZnO nanoparticles embedded in poly-4-vinyl-phenol

• Improved electrical bistability was acquired for hybrid device by using SiO2 modified-ZnO NPs embedded in PVP.
• Multilevel conductance was achieved by applying different negative bias voltage.
• The SiO2 modification influence was attributed to prevent the electron recombination and establish energy barrier height.
• The device conduction mechanism was related to charge trapping and de-trapping process by ZnO NPs.

An electrical bistable device was fabricated by using SiO2 modified-ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in poly-vinyl-phenol (PVP) polymer as the charge storage medium. Compared to the reference devices with PVP or ZnO NPs embedded in PVP, the proposed device showed improved reproducible electrical bistability. The time maintenance for On/Off states reached 104 s104 s, revealing the better environmental stability. The carrier transport mechanism was interpreted by the space-charge-limited-current (SCLC), thermionic emission (TE) and ohmic conduction models. The charge trapping and de-trapping process of ZnO NPs were described based on the energy-band diagram of the device.