Environmentally Friendly Resistive Switching Memory Devices with DNA as the Active Layer and Bio-Based Polyethylene Furanoate as the Substrate

Abstract

The development of flexible electronics for wearable or implantable devices has become an exciting research area in recent years. With the transition from rigid to flexible devices, polymeric materials, in particular the fossil-based PET, have been extensively used as the device substrate. For the environmental sustainability reason, biobased products have drawn much attention as a green replacement for fossil-based polymers. In this work, poly(ethylene furanoate) (PEF), a 100% biobased polyester, was utilized to replace PET as the substrate, and the biopolymer, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), was applied as the active layer to form the all-polymer resistive switching memory devices that are fully solution processable. The devices demonstrated the write-once-read-many-times (WORM) memory behavior with a low threshold voltage of approximately −2 V, an ON/OFF current ratio as high as 104, and a data retention time over 104 s. No noticeable degradation was observed under bending with various radius of curvature and after 1000 cycles of bending, suggesting an excellent endurance against severe and repeated deformation.