Introduction of defects in hexagonal boron nitride for vacancy-based 2D memristors

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have become potential resistive switching (RS) layers to prepare emerging non-volatile memristors. The atomically thin thickness and the highly controllable defect density contribute to the construction of ultimately scaled memory cells with stable switching behaviors. Although the conductive bridge random-access memory based on 2D hexagonal boron nitride has been widely studied, the realization of RS completely relying on vacancies in 2D materials has performance superiority. Here, we synthesize carbon-doped h-BN (C-h-BN) with a certain number of defects by controlling the weight percentage of carbon powder in the source. These defects can form a vacancy-based conductive filament under an applied electric field. The memristor displays bipolar non-volatile memory with a low SET voltage of 0.85 V and shows a long retention time of up to 10⁴ s at 120 °C. The response times of the SET and RESET process are less than 80 ns and 240 ns, respectively. The current mapping by conductive atomic force microscopy demonstrates the electric-field-induced current tunneling from defective sites of the C-h-BN flake, revealing the defect-based RS in the C-h-BN memristor. Moreover, C-h-BN with excellent flexibility can be applied to wearable devices, maintaining stable RS performance in a variety of bending environments and after multiple bending cycles. The vacancy-based 2D memristor provides a new strategy for developing ultra-scaled memory units with high controllability.