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Strain engineering of vertical molybdenum ditelluride phase-change memristors

Nature Electronics volume 7, pages 8–16 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electric-field-controlled electronic and structural phase transitions can be used as a mechanism for memristive switching in two-dimensional (2D) materials. However, such 2D phase-change memristors do not typically outperform other 2D memristors. Here we report high-performance bipolar phase-change memristors that are based on strain-engineered multilayer molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2). Using process-induced strain engineering, stressed metal thin films are patterned into contacts that induce a strain-driven semimetallic-to-semiconducting phase transition in the MoTe2, forming a self-aligned vertical transport memristor with semiconducting MoTe2 as the active region. By using strain to bring the material close to the phase transition boundary, the devices can exhibit switching voltages of 90 mV, on/off ratios of 108, switching times of 5 ns and retentions of over 105 s. A single-process parameter, contact metal film force (the product of the film stress and film thickness), can be varied to tune the device switching voltage and on/off ratio.

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Fig. 1: Strain-based 1T’-MoTe2 memristor.
Fig. 2: Out-of-plane and in-plane strain profile under the stressor.
Fig. 3: Analysis of devices with respect to device parameters.
Fig. 4: Resistive switching under different film force.
Fig. 5: Film-force-controllable switching characteristic.
Fig. 6: Strain-based 1T’ MoTe2 memristor performance.

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Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

S.M.W. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (OMA-1936250 and ECCS-1942815). Raman spectroscopy was performed at the Cornell Center for Materials Research Shared Facilities (CCMR), and CCMR is supported through the NSF MRSEC Program (No. DMR-1719875). We would like to thank Qiang Lin at the University of Rochester in aiding us with the equipment that made it possible to obtain switching speed test results.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Wenhui Hou, Ahmad Azizimanesh.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Wenhui Hou, Ahmad Azizimanesh, Yufeng Yang, Wuxiucheng Wang, Chen Shao, Hui Wu & Stephen M. Wu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Aditya Dey, Hesam Askari & Sobhit Singh

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Stephen M. Wu

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Contributions

The device fabrication was performed by W.H. and A.A. and the device characterization was performed by W.H., Y.Y. and C.S. Raman spectroscopy was performed by A.A. Thin film stress measurements were performed by W.H. and A.A. The density functional theory simulation of the strain phase diagram was performed by A.D. and supervised by H.A. and S.S. High-speed pulse testing was performed by W.H. and W.W., and supervised by H.W. Figure rendering was performed by W.H. and the paper was written by W.H., A.A. and S.M.W. Original experiment conception and project supervision was provided by S.M.W.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen M. Wu.

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Nature Electronics thanks Ning Dai, Jianhua Hao and Huairuo Zhang for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–20, Discussion and Table 1.

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Hou, W., Azizimanesh, A., Dey, A. et al. Strain engineering of vertical molybdenum ditelluride phase-change memristors. Nat Electron 7, 8–16 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-01071-2

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