The temperature-dependent physical and electrical characteristics of a polymer/RAFT-polymer stabilized nanoparticle system for organic nonvolatile memory.

We have fabricated and investigated organic memory diodes, comprising a single polymer layer and Au nanoparticles stabilized by the same polymer material utilizing a reversible addition-fragmentation transfer technique to suppress phase separation. The organic memory diodes exhibit well reproducible and prominent current bistability and good charge retention characteristics free from phase separation issues. Nondestructive spectroscopic ellipsometry is used to characterize the physical properties of the polymer/nanoparticle composites, such as the polymer's effective dielectric function/layer thickness and the Au nanoparticle's effective volume fraction, which are important parameters for gaining insightful information on charge transport in this system. Temperature-dependent analysis of the read/write current behaviors suggests that charge transport in such a polymer/Au nanoparticle composite is dominated by carrier hopping via shallow-level traps at the high field regime.