Protonated g-C3N4-based nonvolatile memories with good environmental robustness assisted by boron nitride

The searching for new memory that can work under harsh conditions will be significant for their application in some important fields such as geothermal, oil and aerospace industries. In this work, memory devices with simple sandwich structures using the g-C3N4 treated by different concentration acids as active layers have been fabricated, which exhibit non-volatile behaviors and bipolar switching characteristics. Protonation treatment can enhance the memory performance efficiently compared with un-protonized device. Among them, the device containing g-C3N4 treated with 8 M HCl presents the best resistive switching performance with ON/OFF ratio of 104 and good retention capability, which might be relative to its texture without violent tortuosity. In addition, the protonated g-C3N4-based memory devices exhibit good environmental robustness, including temperature and ionizing irradiation. Specially, its high tolerant temperature (454 ?) can also be assisted by doping BN for heat dissipation. Their good thermal/irradiating stabilities are assigned to the strong bond energy of C=N double bonds localized pi-conjugated tri-s-triazine rings. In all, the facial protonation treatment without any functionalization or supporting, the simple sandwich device structure and good environmental robustness endow their promising applications in aerospace and outdoor environment. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The effects of protonation treatment on the performance of g-C3N4-based memory devices have been investigated in this study. It was found that the device treated with 8 M HCl exhibited the best resistive switching performance and good environmental robustness, making it suitable for applications under harsh conditions.