Hydrothermal synthesis and nonvolatile resistive switching properties of α-Fe₂O₃ nanosheet arrays

A facile one-step hydrothermal method has been reported to synthesize the α-Fe₂O₃ nanosheet arrays with the preferred orientation along the 104 direction on the ITO substrate. The α-Fe₂O₃ nanosheet arrays-based W/α-Fe₂O₃/ITO memristor has been achieved by depositing the circular W top electrodes on the α-Fe₂O₃ nanosheet arrays. The as-prepared W/α-Fe₂O₃/ITO memristor shows a reliable nonvolatile bipolar resistive switching behavior with the high resistance ratio of about 10³ at the reading voltage of 0.1 V, good resistance retention over 10₃ s, ultralow set voltage of −0.6 V and reset voltage of 0.7 V, and good durability. In addition, the tunneling conduction mechanism modified by the oxygen vacancies has been proposed and suggested to be responsible for the nonvolatile resistive switching behavior of the as-prepared W/α-Fe₂O₃/ITO memristor. This work demonstrates that the as-prepared α-Fe₂O₃ nanosheet arrays-based W/α-Fe₂O₃/ITO memristor would be a promising candidate for further ultralow power nonvolatile memory applications.