Fabrication of printed memory device having zinc-oxide active nano-layer and investigation of resistive switching

An all printed resistive memory device, a 9-bit memristor, has been presented in this study consisting of 3 × 3 memristor crossbars deposited via electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing process at room conditions. Transparent zinc oxide active nano-layers, directly deposited by electrospray process, are sandwiched between the crossbars to complete the metal–insulator metal structure consisting of copper–zinc oxide–silver, where Cu and Ag are used as bottom and top electrodes respectively. The 9-bit memristor device has been characterized using current–voltage measurements to investigate the resistive switching phenomenon thereby confirming the memristive pinched hysteresis behavior signifying the read–write and memory characteristics. The memristor device showed a current bistability due to the existence of metal–oxide layer which gives rise to oxygen vacancies upon receiving the positive voltage hence breaking down into doped and un-doped regions and a charge transfer takes place. The maximum ON/OFF ratio of the current bi-stability for the fabricated memristor was as large as 1 × 103, and the endurance of ON/OFF switchings was verified for 500 read–write cycles. The metal–insulator–metal structure has been characterized using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope techniques.