Nanocomposite material, tunable resistor device, and method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9231209-B2
Application number	US-201314081409-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 15, 2013
Priority date	Nov 16, 2012
Publication date	Jan 5, 2016
Grant date	Jan 5, 2016

Abstract

Various embodiments of a composite material are provided. In one embodiment of the present invention a nanometer-scale composite material comprises, by volume, from about 1% to about 99% variable-conductivity material and from about 99% to about 1% conductive material. The composite material exhibits memristive properties when a voltage differential is applied to the nanocomposite. In another embodiment, a variable resistor device includes a first electrode terminal and a second electrode terminal and a nanocomposite in electrical communication with the electrode terminals. The composite material comprises, by volume, from about 1% to about 99% variable-conductivity material and from about 99% to about 1% conductive material. The memristor is tunable as the minimum instantaneous resistance can be altered several orders of magnitude by varying the composition and ratio of the variable-conductivity material and conductive material constituents of the composites.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A composite material comprising:
from about 1% to about 99% variable-conductivity material;
from about 99% to about 1% conductive material;
wherein the conductive material and variable-conductivity material comprise nanometer-scale particles having an average lineal dimension that ranges from about one nanometer to about one micron: and
wherein the composite material exhibits memristive properties when a voltage differential is applied to the composite material.

2. The composite material of claim 1 , Wherein the conductive material is a metal or a semiconductor material.

3. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the conductive material is a doped semiconductor.

4. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the variable-conductivity material is a solid ionic conductor material.

5. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the variable-conductivity material is a metal oxide.

6. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the composite material comprises, by volume, from about 10% to about 90% variable-conductivity material and from about 90% to about 10% conductive material.

7. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the volumetric ratio of the variable-conductivity material to the conductive material ranges from about 35% :65% to about 70% :30%.

8. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the conductive material is selected from the group of: gold, silver, silicon, germanium gallium arsenide, and mixtures thereof.

9. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the variable conductivity material is a metal oxide selected from the group of nickel oxide, zinc oxide, titanium dioxide hafnium oxide, silicon oxide, vanadium oxide and mixtures thereof.

10. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the variable-conductivity material is a solid ionic conductor material selected from the group of: silver iodide, copper iodide, lanthanum fluoride, silver fluoride, and combinations thereof.

11. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the composite material comprise, by volume, from about 35% to about 65% silicon and from about 65% to about 35% nickel oxide.

12. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the variable-conductivity material is nickel-oxide and the conductive material is silicon.

13. The composite material of claim 12 , wherein the volume ratio of nickel-oxide to silicon ranges from about 1% :99% to about 99% :1%.

14. The composite material of claim 12 , wherein the volume ratio of nickel-oxide to silicon ranges from about 35% :65% to about 75% :25%.

15. The composite material of claim 1 , wherein the composite material has a minimum resistance that ranges from about 1 kΩto about 5 GΩwhen a voltage differential that ranges from zero to 10 Volts is applied to the composite material.

16. A variable resistor device comprising:
a composite material comprising a nanometer-scale conductive material and nanometer-scale variable-conductive material;
a first electrode connected to the composite material and a second electrode connected to the composite material; and
wherein the variable resistor device exhibits memristive properties in response to voltage applied across the first electrode and the second electrode.

17. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the nanometer-scale conductive material and the nanometer-scale variable-conductive material comprise particles having an average diameter that ranges from about one nanometer to about one micron.

18. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the variable-conductivity material of the composite comprises metal oxide.

19. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the conductive material of the composite comprises semiconductor material.

20. The composite material of claim 16 , wherein the variable-conductivity material of the composite comprises a solid ionic conductor material.

21. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the volumetric ratio of the variable-conductivity material to the conductive material ranges from about 1% :99% to about 99% :1%.

22. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the volumetric ratio of the variable-conductivity material to the conductive material ranges from about 35% :65% to about 75% :25%.

23. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the conductive material is selected from the group of: gold, silver, silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, and mixtures thereof.

24. The variable resistor device of claim 18 , wherein the metal oxide material is selected from the group of: nickel oxide, zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, hafnium oxide, silicon oxide, vanadium oxide and mixtures thereof.

25. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the composite material comprises, by volume, from about 25% to about 75% nickel-oxide and from about 75% to about 25% silicon.

26. The variable resistor device of claim 16 , wherein the composite material is a film structure.

27. The variable resistor device of claim 26 , wherein the conductive material is present in the film as a host material having defined pores, and the variable-conductivity material is present as an intercalating material disposed within the pores.

28. A method for making a composite comprising:
hybridizing a nanometer-scale conductive material with a nanometer-scale variable-conductivity material to form a composite material comprising, by volume, from about 1% to about 99% variable-conductivity material and from about 99% to about 1% conductive material.

29. The method of claim 28 , wherein the ratio, by volume, of variable-conductivity material to conductive material ranges from about 25% :75% to about 75% :25%.

30. The method of claim 28 , wherein hybridizing comprises:
forming the conductive material into a film structure having pores therein; and
fining the pores of the film structure with particles of the variable-conductive material via at least one of the following techniques: sol-gel deposition, thermal deposition, and electron beam deposition.

31. The method of claim 28 , further comprising:
fabricating a first electrode and a second electrode on the composite via photolithography; and
wherein the first electrode and the second electrode comprise a material selected from the group of: gold, silver, platinum, nickel, aluminum and mixtures thereof.

32. The method of claim 28 , wherein:
the conductive material is selected from the group of: gold, silver, silicon, germanium, gallium, arsenide, and mixtures thereof; and
the variable-conductivity material is selected from the group of: nickel oxide, zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, hafnium oxide, silicon oxide, vanadium oxide, silver iodide, copper iodide, lanthanum fluoride, silver fluoride and mixtures thereof.

Assignees

• Vanderbilt Unviersity
• Univ Vanderbilt

Inventors

• Mares Jeremy West
• Weiss Sharon M

Classifications

• Y10S977/779

  Possessing nanosized particles, powders, flakes, or clusters other than simple atomic impurity doping · CPC title

• H01L45/1683 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L45/1266

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L45/14

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L45/08

  Electricity · mapped topic