An Account of Natural Material-Based Nonvolatile Memory Device

The development in electronic sector has brought a remarkable change in the lifestyle of mankind. At the same time, this technological advancement results in adverse effect on environment due to the use of toxic and non-degradable materials in various electronic devices. With the emergence of environmental problems, the green, reprogrammable, biodegradable, sustainable and environmental-friendly electronic devices have become one of the best solutions for protecting our environment from hazardous materials without compromising the growth of the electronic industry. Natural material has emerged as the promising candidate for the next generation of electronic devices due to its easy processing, transparency, flexibility, abundant resources, sustainability, recyclability, and simple extraction. This review targets the characteristics, advancements, role, limitations, and prospects of using natural materials as the functional layer of a resistive switching memory device with a primary focus on the switching/memory properties. Among the available memory devices, resistive random access memory, write once read many unipolar memory, etc., devices have a huge potential to become the nonvolatile memory of the next generation owing to their simple structure, high scalability, and low power consumption. The motivation behind this work is to promote the use of natural materials in electronic devices and attract researchers toward a green solution of hazardous problems associated with the electronic devices.

Automated summary

The development of the electronic sector has significantly changed human lifestyle, but it has also had adverse effects on the environment due to the use of toxic and non-degradable materials. To address these environmental problems, green, reprogrammable, biodegradable, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly electronic devices have become a viable solution. Natural materials have emerged as promising candidates for the next generation of electronic devices due to their easy processing, transparency, flexibility, abundant resources, sustainability, recyclability, and simple extraction. This review focuses on the characteristics, advancements, role, limitations, and prospects of using natural materials as the functional layer of resistive switching memory devices, with a primary focus on the switching and memory properties.