Adjustment of conformation change and charge trapping in ion-doped polymers to achieve ternary memory performance

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. C, Materials for optical and electronic devices Materials for optical and electronic devices, 2013-01, Vol.1 (47), p.7883-7889
• Main Authors: He, Dongwei, Zhuang, Hao, Liu, Haifeng, Liu, Hongzhang, Li, Hua, Lu, Jianmei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbazoles; Charge; Data storage; Jewelry; Moles; Polymers; Pyridines; Trapping
• ISSN: 2050-7526; 2050-7534
• DOI: 10.1039/c3tc31759e

Ion-doped poly(4-vinylpyridine) derivatives (P4VPCz), where in the pendant chains the electron-withdrawing pyridine moiety and acceptor carbazole moiety are linked by a flexible alkyl spacer were designed and synthesized. Sandwiched ITO/P4VPCz/Al devices, made through simple spin-coating processes have shown that they could be tuned from a binary to ternary memory performance, by increasing the carbazole content. P4VPCz2 with a 20% mole ratio of the carbazole moiety shows a binary performance according to the charge trapping of the pyridine acceptor in the polymer, while P4VPCz5 which contains a 50% mole ratio of carbazole in the pendant chains, exhibits a ternary data storage ability, probably induced by double mechanisms (i.e.a conformational change and charge trapping). Interestingly, as the carbazole mole ratio reached 80%, the polymer P4VPCz8 has a high conductivity state, with no switching behavior, because of the large amount of doped ions improving the charge transfer mobility. Thus, we hope can offer a guideline to achieve a high-performance multilevel memory material, viacombining different mechanisms as well as doping ions.