Eco-Friendly Biomemristive Nonvolatile Memory: Harnessing Organic Waste for Sustainable Technology

Organic material-based bioelectronic nonvolatile memory devices have recently received a lot of attention due to their environmental compatibility, simple fabrication recipe, preferred scalability, low cost, low power consumption, and numerous additional advantages. Resistive random-access memory (RRAM) devices work on the principle of resistive switching, which has the potential for applications in memory storage and neuromorphic computing. Here, natural organically grown orange peel was used to extract biocompatible pectin to design a resistive switching-based memory device of the structure Ag/Pectin/Indium tin oxide (ITO), and the behavior was studied between a temperature range of 10K and 300K. The microscopic characterization revealed the texture of the surface and thickness of the layers. The memristive current-voltage characteristics performed over 1000 consecutive cycles of repeated switching revealed sustainable bipolar resistive switching behavior with a high ON/OFF ratio. The underlying principle of Resistive Switching behavior is based on the formation of conductive filaments between the electrodes, which is explained in this work. Further, we have also designed a 2 × 2 crossbar array of RRAM devices to demonstrate various logic circuit operations useful for neuromorphic computing. The robust switching characteristics suggest possible uses of such devices for the design of ecofriendly bioelectronic memory applications and in-memory computing.