Non-volatile resistive switching based on zirconium dioxide: poly (4-vinylphenol) nano-composite

Recently, resistive switching devices are getting tremendous attention since they can be used for data storage in future. In this paper, we propose a non-volatile resistive switching device based on inorganic and organic nano-composite of zirconium dioxide (ZrO₂) and poly (4-vinylphenol) (PVP), respectively. The nano-composite active layer ZrO₂:PVP is fabricated on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate through a spin coater technology and the top electrodes are fabricated by using silver (Ag) epoxy. The proposed device demonstrates a bipolar resistive switching at low operating voltage of ± 1.5 V with high resistance state and low resistance state of 11.438 kΩ and 262.25 Ω, respectively. To verify the non-volatility and long-term stability, the retention time is checked for more than 30 days and R_off/R_on resistance ratio is ~ 44. The proposed device is analyzed electrically and mechanically to analyze the effect of PVP in ZrO₂ for better memory application and FESEM is used for the morphological characteristics of the device. These results ensure that the ZrO₂:PVP nano-composite-based resistive switching device can be a possible candidate for the forthcoming flexible and low-power non-volatile resistive switching memory device.