Memristive effects in oxygenated amorphous carbon nanodevices

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Computer Engineering
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Resistive-switching (memristive) memory devices offer a solution to the von Neumann bottleneck.
• Carbon-based devices show promise due to scalability and speed, but elemental carbon (ta-C) has endurance issues.
• Oxygenated amorphous carbon (a-COx) provides a balance of carbon-based advantages with improved endurance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the memristive capabilities of nanoscale a-COx devices.
• To assess their suitability for multilevel state storage and arithmetic accumulation for computing applications.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication and characterization of nanoscale a-COx memristive devices.
• Testing for multilevel state storage (3-level) and arithmetic accumulation functionalities.
• Implementation and demonstration of a base-16 (hexadecimal) accumulator.

Main Results:

• Successful operation of nanoscale a-COx memory cells for storing multilevel states.
• Demonstrated arithmetic accumulation capabilities, including hexadecimal operations.
• Achieved fast (sub-10 ns) and low-energy (sub-pJ) operation.

Conclusions:

• Nanoscale a-COx memristive devices exhibit promising multilevel and accumulation properties for computing.
• These devices can perform hexadecimal arithmetic and store results within the same cell.
• a-COx represents a viable material for advanced, energy-efficient computing architectures.