Floating-gate memristor based on a MoS₂/h-BN/AuNPs mixed-dimensional heterostructure

Abstract Memristors have recently received substantial attention because of their promising and unique emerging applications in neuromorphic computing, which can achieve gains in computation speed by mimicking the topology of the brain in electronic circuits. Traditional memristors made of bulk MoO₃ and HfO₂, for example, suffer from a low switching ratio and poor durability and stability. In this work, a floating-gate memristor is developed based on a mixed-dimensional heterostructure comprising two-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) and zero-dimensional (0D) Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) separated by an insulating hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layer (MoS₂/h-BN/AuNPs). We find that under the modulation of back-gate voltages, the MoS₂/h-BN/AuNPs device operates reliably between a high-resistance state (HRS) and a low-resistance state (LRS) and shows multiple stable LRS states, demonstrating the excellent potential of our memristor in multibit storage applications. The modulation effect can be attributed to electron quantum tunneling between the AuNP charge-trapping layer and the MoS₂ channel. Our memristor exhibits excellent durability and stability: the HRS and LRS are retained for more than 10⁴ s without obvious degradation and the on/off ratio is >10⁴ after more than 3000 switching cycles. We also demonstrate frequency-dependent memory properties upon stimulation with electrical and optical pulses.