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Nano Research 2022, 15(7): 6507-6514 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4305-7
Research Article | Issue | Published: 25 April 2022

Flash memory based on MoTe2/boron nitride/graphene semi-floating gate heterostructure with non-volatile and dynamically tunable polarity

Show Author's Information Shijie Wang1,2,  Guangyu Geng1,2,  Yang Sun1,2,  Sen Wu1,2,  Xiaodong Hu1,2,  Enxiu Wu1,2( ),  Jing Liu1,2( )
School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Tianjin 300072, China
Keywords:
nonvolatile, polarity modulation, ultraviolet light, semi-floating gate
Topics:
Field effect transistors
Cite this article:
Wang S, Geng G, Sun Y, et al. Flash memory based on MoTe2/boron nitride/graphene semi-floating gate heterostructure with non-volatile and dynamically tunable polarity. Nano Research, 2022, 15(7): 6507-6514. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4305-7
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising candidates to develop flash memories with premium performances as compared to conventional bulk materials, because of their ultra-thin thickness and highly tunable electrical properties. So far, most of the reported 2D material based flash memories work in the uni-polar mode, which usually further integrate additional local gate to achieve bi-polar function. However, such approach is volatile, meaning that the gate bias has to be applied persistently to maintain the polarity change and thus increases the power consumption. Here, we report a bi-polar memory based on MoTe2/h-BN/graphene semi-floating gate (SFG) heterostructure, which has non-volatile and dynamically tunable polarity. The SFG configuration has the channel layer of MoTe2 and dielectric layer of h-BN half-stacked on the floating gate layer of graphene. The off-graphene half of the MoTe2 channel can be tuned between n-type and p-type by simultaneously applying ultraviolet (UV) illumination and electrical field through the back gate, which maintains this polarity after the removal of both stimuli. As a result, the SFG memory can work in the non-volatile bi-polar mode, with a on/off ratio of ~ 100 and switching speed of 1 ms. On the other hand, the on-graphene half of the MoTe2 channel remains n-type under UV illumination and electrical bias, so that the MoTe2 full floating gate memory maintains n-type, which implements the integration of both n- and p-type memories in a single 2D heterostructure. This capability provides great flexibility for memory devices adapting in various emerging applications.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Flash memory based on MoTe2/boron nitride/graphene semi-floating gate heterostructure with non-volatile and dynamically tunable polarity

Show Author's information Shijie Wang1,2, Guangyu Geng1,2, Yang Sun1,2, Sen Wu1,2, Xiaodong Hu1,2, Enxiu Wu1,2( ), Jing Liu1,2( )
School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Tianjin 300072, China

Abstract

Atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising candidates to develop flash memories with premium performances as compared to conventional bulk materials, because of their ultra-thin thickness and highly tunable electrical properties. So far, most of the reported 2D material based flash memories work in the uni-polar mode, which usually further integrate additional local gate to achieve bi-polar function. However, such approach is volatile, meaning that the gate bias has to be applied persistently to maintain the polarity change and thus increases the power consumption. Here, we report a bi-polar memory based on MoTe2/h-BN/graphene semi-floating gate (SFG) heterostructure, which has non-volatile and dynamically tunable polarity. The SFG configuration has the channel layer of MoTe2 and dielectric layer of h-BN half-stacked on the floating gate layer of graphene. The off-graphene half of the MoTe2 channel can be tuned between n-type and p-type by simultaneously applying ultraviolet (UV) illumination and electrical field through the back gate, which maintains this polarity after the removal of both stimuli. As a result, the SFG memory can work in the non-volatile bi-polar mode, with a on/off ratio of ~ 100 and switching speed of 1 ms. On the other hand, the on-graphene half of the MoTe2 channel remains n-type under UV illumination and electrical bias, so that the MoTe2 full floating gate memory maintains n-type, which implements the integration of both n- and p-type memories in a single 2D heterostructure. This capability provides great flexibility for memory devices adapting in various emerging applications.

Keywords: nonvolatile, polarity modulation, ultraviolet light, semi-floating gate

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 08 December 2021
Revised: 08 March 2022
Accepted: 08 March 2022
Published: 25 April 2022
Issue date: July 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program (No. 2018YFA0307200), the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC, No. 52075385 and 12034001), and the 111 Project (No. B07014).

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