A Conjugated Polymer Bearing Perylenediimide (PDI) and Ferrocene (Fc) Exhibiting Stable Data‐Storage Performance

Abstract

Polymeric materials have been widely researched and used as active‐layers to fabricate data‐storage resistance random‐access memory (ReRAM) devices. Nevertheless, the problems as drift voltage, weak stability, and low reproducibility largely restrict their practical application in next‐generation memory systems, mainly induced by the molecular stacking defects that limited the efficient charge‐carrier migration throughout the active‐layers. Thus, how to weaken the molecular stacking defects and thus improve the overall ReRAM performance is a scientific issue that needs to be solved urgently. In this work, an organometallic polymer 5,12‐di(thiophen‐2‐l)‐2,9‐di(tridecan‐7‐yl)anthra[2,1,9‐def:6,5,10‐d'e'f']diisoquinoline‐1,3,8,10(2H,9H)‐tetraone P(DTPDI‐Fc) is designed with ferrocene (Fc) and perylenediimide (PDI) building repeats. The X‐ray diffraction (XRD) test confirms the regioregular stacking styles of P(DTPDI‐Fc) in solid states, and atomic force microscope (AFM) measurement verified the continuous and smooth surface morphology of P(DTPDI‐Fc) films. Therefore, the charge carriers can easily inject into P(DTPDI‐Fc) film and can efficiently migrate throughout P(DTPDI‐Fc) films. Thus, P(DTPDI‐Fc) devices show excellent memory behaviors with low high‐conductance state ON‐state current, stable threshold voltage, long‐time stability, and high device reproducibility. This work affords a practical strategy to weaken molecular stacking defects and to improve stacking regioregularity, which will give a guidance for the designing of multilevel data‐storage ReRAM devices in future researches.