Thin Film Electronics Group

Quantum Materials Field

We have been developing nanoelectronics based on atomically thin films combined with nanoscale fabrication technique.

Group Leader: Kazuhito Tsukagoshi

Resistance Switch in a Minimal-Fullerene Chain in Vertically Stacked Electrodes

Current Topics

In order to utilize the properties of nanoscale materials and nano-thickness films as electronic elements to the fullest extent, it is essential to develop an appropriate combination of these nanomaterials and nano-fabrication techniques. To this end, we are developing techniques for modifying substrate surfaces at the atomic level, and materials for n-type and p-type atomic film semiconductors.

Outline of Research

We realized a switch element with a new material in vertical structure, in which C₆₀ pyrrolidine trisaccharide (CPTA) film is vertically sandwiched between the top and bottom electrodes. The CPTA film can be deposited simply by the spin-coating, allowing the nanometer-scale thickness film on ALD-grown oxide nano-film. In this structure, nanometer-scale fullerene chain as conductive channel is formed selectively at the thinnest point in the CPTA film. Control of polymerization and depolymerization of the nanoscale length chain with external voltage inputs allows a binary state switching between a high resistance and a low resistance. In the present experiments, it was found that, when the channel length was narrowed down to 3.7 nm, corresponding to 3-4 fullerene chain bridging the two electrodes, the stable switching sequence was reproducibly achieved. These novel results provide significant advantages for electron device development over the commonly used STM tool.

Fig. 1. Using fullerene nanochain in configuration of sandwiched structure with two electrodes, in which conduction path was activated by electron beam, binary resistance switch was realized. 100s time cyclic operation of fullerene chain switching can be performed at room temperature.

References

T. Hirama et al., ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 6 , 3403 (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.4c00000
M. Takei et al., ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 6 , 1740 (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.4c00001
M. Takei et al., ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 5 , 3184 (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.3c00002
M. Takeuchi et al., ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 5 , 6430 (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.2c00003
Y. Umeta et al., ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 4 , 7935 (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.1c00004
Y. Umeta et al., ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 4 , 820 (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.1c00005

Group members

Kazuhito Tsukagoshi

・Group Leader
Toshihide Nabatame

・Senior Scientist with Special Missions

・Invited Researcher
Seiichi Kato

・Senior Researcher

Current Topics

Outline of Research

References

Group members

Activities

Links