Conducting polymer nanostructures have received increasing attention in both fundamental research and various application fields in recent decades. Compared with bulk conducting polymers, conducting polymer nanostructures are expected to display improved performance in energy storage because of the unique properties arising from their nanoscaled size: high electrical conductivity, large surface area, short path lengths for the transport of ions, and high electrochemical activity. Template methods are emerging for a sort of facile, efficient, and highly controllable synthesis of conducting polymer nanostructures. This paper reviews template synthesis routes for conducting polymer nanostructures, including soft and hard template methods, as well as its mechanisms. The application of conducting polymer mesostructures in energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors and rechargeable batteries, are discussed.

We report the direct electrical measurement of multiple resistance steps in the ZrO2-based solid electrolyte nonvolatile memory device using the refined dc I-V method with a very small voltage increasing rate. The results demonstrate that multiple conductive filaments are formed successively between the bottom and top metal electrodes through the insulating layer while increasing the bias voltage, which are consistent with the electrical field simulation results based on the solid electrolyte theory. The inverse relationship between resistance steps and the filament formation sequence are obtained, which helps understand the switching mechanism of the multiple conductive filaments.

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The electron transport in W/CeOx/SiO2/NiSi2 resistive switching devices fabricated onto a p+-type Si substrate is investigated. It is shown that the structures exhibit bipolar switching with conductance values in the low resistance state (LRS) close to integer and half integer values of the quantum unit G0 = 2e2/h, e and h being the electron charge and Planck constant, respectively. This behavior is consistent with the so-called nonlinear conduction regime in quantum point-contacts. A simple model for the LRS current-voltage characteristic based on the finite-bias Landauer formula which accounts for the right- and left-going conduction modes dictated by the constriction’s cross-section area and the voltage drop distribution along the filamentary path is reported.