Nonvolatile memory with molecule-engineered tunneling barriers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a molecule-engineered tunneling barrier using C60 embedded in SiO2, enhancing nonvolatile memory performance by enabling field-sensitive resonant tunneling and significantly improving retention times.

Contribution

It presents a novel molecular tunneling barrier with C60 in SiO2, demonstrating improved retention and potential for hybrid molecular-silicon electronic devices.

Findings

Over an order of magnitude improvement in retention to program/erase time ratio.

Resonant tunneling enabled at high fields, quenched at low fields due to molecular energy gaps.

Potential for future hybrid molecular-silicon memory technologies.

Abstract

We report a novel field-sensitive tunneling barrier by embedding C60 in SiO2 for nonvolatile memory applications. C60 is a better choice than ultra-small nanocrystals due to its monodispersion. Moreover, C60 provides accessible energy levels to prompt resonant tunneling through SiO2 at high fields. However, this process is quenched at low fields due to HOMO-LUMO gap and large charging energy of C60. Furthermore, we demonstrate an improvement of more than an order of magnitude in retention to program/erase time ratio for a metal nanocrystal memory. This shows promise of engineering tunnel dielectrics by integrating molecules in the future hybrid molecular-silicon electronics.