Resistive Switching Nanodevices Based on Metal-Organic Frameworks

SURMOF (surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks) thin films exhibit exciting chemical and physical properties, which can be modulated in a straightforward fashion to achieve specific benefits for numerous applications in future technologies. Here, we report a detailed characterization of resistive switching in crystalline SURMOF films of around approximate to 10, approximate to 20 and approximate to 50 nm thicknesses. These demonstrated switching characteristics combined with the ability to deposit monolithically oriented crystalline HKUST-1 films with well-defined thicknesses in the nm-range on conductive substrates serving as bottom electrodes and to lithographically fabricate top-electrodes opens up the possibility to employ these metal-organic hybrid materials as solid state devices for potential nonvolatile resistive random access memory (RRAM) memory applications. MOF bipolar switching RRAM devices based on SURMOFs with thicknesses of 10 +/- 5 nm, 20 +/- 5 nm and 50 +/- 5 nm show exceptionally promising performance. The huge flexibility of MOF materials with regards to device applications is demonstrated by loading guest molecules into the pores of these framework materials. In the case of ferrocene infiltration, we show that the already impressive performance of the SURMOF-RRAM devices can be further improved. The results demonstrate the great potential of SURMOF thin films for the implementation of novel and scalable active materials for the next generation of digital processing and organic-based microelectronic devices.