Emergence of electric field-induced conducting states in single-crystalline MoTe2 nanoflakes and its application in memristive devices

Conductive atomic force microscopy (cAFM) reveals the emergence of conducting states in MoTe2 NFs under applied electric field. In this report, we explore the use of electric field induced conducting states in the single-crystalline MoTe2 nanoflakes (NFs) for nonvolatile resistive memory technologies. The memristive devices are fabricated in vertical metal–insulator (active layer)-metal architecture with aluminum top and fluorine doped tin oxide bottom electrodes. The MoTe2 NFs were embedded in polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) to form the active layer. The device shows appreciable resistive switching (RS) characteristics while switching from a high resistive state (HRS) to a low resistive state (LRS) and vice versa. The low-frequency conductance noise (LFCN) measurements show that the power spectral density of conductance fluctuation follows the 1/f2 nature in the HRS, while 1/f in LRS. The stochastic analysis of conductance fluctuation data exhibits random telegraphic noise in the HRS, indicating the role of NFs as charge trapping sites. The LFCN measurements and cAFM study confirm that electric field-induced conducting states are pivotal in enhancing the RS performance of the memory device.