Shujing Jia^1*, Min Zhu^1*, Huanglong Li², Tamihiro Gotoh³, Christophe Longeaud⁴, Bin Zhang⁵, Juan Lyu², Shilong Lv¹, Zhitang Song¹, Qi Liu⁶, John Robertson⁷, Ming Liu⁶

1 State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-System and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 200050 Shanghai, China

2 Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China

3 Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Gunma University, 3718510 Maebashi, Japan

4 Group of Electrical Engineering of Paris, CNRS, Centrale Supelec, Paris Saclay and Sorbonne Universities, Plateau de Moulon, 91190 Gif sur Yvette, France

5 Analytical and Testing Center of Chongqing University, 401331 Chongqing, China

6 Key Laboratory of Microelectronic Devices and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029 Beijing, China

7 Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA, United Kingdom

* Corresponding authors emails: jiashujing@ime.ac.cn, minzhu@mail.sim.ac.cn

DOI10.24435/materialscloud:sc-9m [version v1]

Publication date: Jul 10, 2020

How to cite this record

Shujing Jia, Min Zhu, Huanglong Li, Tamihiro Gotoh, Christophe Longeaud, Bin Zhang, Juan Lyu, Shilong Lv, Zhitang Song, Qi Liu, John Robertson, Ming Liu, Ultrahigh drive current and large selectivity in GeS selector, Materials Cloud Archive 2020.72 (2020), https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:sc-9m

Description

Selector devices are indispensable components of large-scale nonvolatile memory and neuromorphic array systems. Besides the conventional silicon transistor, two-terminal ovonic threshold switching (OTS) devices with much higher scalability are currently the most industrially favored selector technology. Despite industrial confidence in OTS selectors, current devices rely heavily on intricate control of material stoichiometry and generally suffer from toxic and complex dopants to remedy the intrinsic demerits of the principal functioning materials. Here, we report on a selector with a large drive current density of 34 MA/cm2 and a ~106 high nonlinearity, realized in an environment-friendly and earth-abundant sulfide binary semiconductor, GeS. Both experiments and first-principles calculations have revealed Ge pyramid-dominated network and high density of near-valence band trap states in amorphous GeS. The high drive current capacity is associated with the strong Ge-S covalency and the high nonlinearity could arise from the synergy of the mid-gap traps assisted electronic transition and local Ge-Ge chain growth as well as locally enhanced bond alignment under high electric field. Besides the superior selector function, we have also demonstrated stochastic integrate-and-fire neuron behavior using GeS device, providing an intriguing opportunity for all-chalcogenide neuromorphic electronics. The source data underlying Figs. 1c-e, Figs. 2a–e, and Figs. 3b, d, f are provided as a Source Data file.

Materials Cloud sections using this data

Files

File name	Size	Description
Figs. 1c-e, Figs. 2a–e, and Figs. 3b, d, f.zip MD5md5:818aa5fda6b19fad3b05201533961b93	772.6 KiB	Source data for Figs. 1c-e, Figs. 2a–e, and Figs. 3b, d, f

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External references

Keywords

Selector GeS OTS phase change memory