Polymer electronic memories: Materials, devices and mechanisms

As an emerging area in organic electronics, polymer memories have become an active research topic in recent years, because they are likely to be an alternative or supplementary technology to the conventional memory technology facing the problems and challenges in miniaturizing from microscale to nanoscale. This review provides a summary of the widely reported electrical switching phenomena in polymers and the corresponding polymer electronic memories. A general introduction to the current state of memory technology and some basic concepts of electronic memories is first presented, followed by a brief historical development and some key advances in polymer electronic memories. The subsequent sections give a comprehensive review of three categories of polymer electronic memories, classified by drawing the mechanistic analogy between the polymer switching element and one of the three primary circuit elements, viz., capacitor, transistor and resistor. Emphasis is placed on the relationships among material structures and properties, memory devices and operating mechanisms. Finally, the challenges facing the research and development in the field of polymer electronic memories are summarized.