Fabrication of artificial iconic memory device with perovskite-metal multilayers

A monolithic artificial iconic memory is a visual device that can perceive an image and store the information it captures simultaneously. However, the development of such systems has been held back by their complicated fabrication process and functional limitations of the materials.

Guan et al. developed a fabrication technique for monolithic artificial iconic memory devices based on MAPbBr₃perovskite-metal multilayers. The authors chose the perovskite-metal multilayers for their stability and ability to act as both photodetector and memory, which can ‘significantly simplifies the multilayer fabrication process,’ according to the group.

“It is well recognized that hybrid perovskites have very high photoresponse in the visible regime,” said author Tom Wu. “Moreover, the resistive switching memory and the photodetector are separate components connected in series, leading to excellent tunability and wavelength selectivity, and the multilayer artificial iconic memory is more reliable and reproducible compared to the conventional device structures.”

The authors constructed the multilayer with an indium tin oxide/perovskite/gold/perovskite/silver pattern to harness the functionalities of the perovskite layers. This configuration allows the layers to work in harmony, with the bottom layer acting as the photodetector and the top layer as the resistive switching memory, realizing a reliable switching operation with retention of over 5000 seconds.

According to the group, their fabrication method is simple and does not require dielectric gating. Furthermore, a stable performance of more than two months was demonstrated with a monolithic artificial iconic memory device fabricated using perovskite-metal multilayers.

The current device is limited by the wide bandgap of the chosen material, MAPbBr₃. The authors plan on exploring the possibility of improving the absorption edge and stability by compositionally engineering additional materials to the device.

Source: “A monolithic artificial iconic memory based on highly stable perovskite-metal multilayers,” by Xinwei Guan, Yutao Wang, Chun-Ho Lin, Long Hu, Shuaipeng Ge, Tao Wan, Adnan Younis, Feng Li, Yimin Cui, Dong-Chen Qi, Dewei Chu, Xiao Dong Chen, and Tom Wu, Applied Physics Reviews (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0009713 .