In situ vulcanization synthesis of CuInS₂ nanosheet arrays for a memristor with a high on-off ratio and low power consumption

Copper chalcogenides-based memristors have provided an attractive option for constructing high performance nonvolatile memory storage devices. However, the presence of lateral leakage inside the film-based switching media impedes the effective integration and uniformity of multiple memory cells. Herein, we report a ternary compound CuInS2 as the resistive switching material for memory devices with unique structure of vertical nanosheet arrays fabricated by a low temperature solution method. The device exhibits obvious bipolar resistive switching performance with a high R-OFF/R-ON ratio of similar to 10(6) and a low power consumption of similar to 100 pW. Besides, the vertical network frame structure of CuInS2 nanosheet arrays could effectively limit the random electrical leakage paths and substantially improve the stability, which can achieve an excellent data retention time over 10(4) s. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the Pool-Frenkel emission and ions migration are responsible for the memristive switching mechanism. These results reveal that the copper indium sulfide nanosheets with excellent performance will be a potential candidate for large-scale, energy-efficient future integrated electronic systems.