Non-volatile memory characteristics of polyimide layers embedded with ZnO nanowires

•We fabricated organic memory devices of polyimide layers embedded with ZnO nanowires.•The ZnO nanowires were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition and deposited into PI layers.•The organic memory devices exhibited WORM-type non-volatile memory characteristics.•The organic memory showed great ON/OFF ratio, uniformity, and bi-stability with long retention.

We fabricated 8 × 8 cross-bar array-type organic non-volatile memory devices of polyimide (PI) layers embedded with ZnO nanowires. The ZnO nanowires were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition and deposited into the PI layers by a solution coating process. The devices of PI layer without ZnO nanowires showed an insulating characteristic without exhibiting any memory behavior. The ZnO nanowires acted as carrier trapping sites in the insulating PI layers for our memory devices. The organic memory devices exhibited write-once-read-many-times-type non-volatile memory characteristics with an excellent ON/OFF switching ratio over 106, good uniformity in cumulative probability, and stability without serious degradation over 104 s.