Electric-pulse-induced resistive switching and possible superconductivity in the Mott insulator GaTa4Se8

There is accumulated evidence today that an electric pulse can drastically modify the physical properties of correlated materials. An electric pulse was shown for example to induce an insulator-to-metal transition in manganites or in organic Mott insulators. We report here the first experimental evidence of a nonvolatile electric pulse-induced insulator-to-metal transition and possible superconductivity in the Mott insulator GaTa4Se8. This resistive switching is concomitant to an electronic phase separation induced by the pulse. This phenomena most probably differs from the thermal, electronic injection or ionic diffusion processes explaining the resistive switching in materials foreseen for non-volatile memory (RRAM) applications. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.