The memristive properties of a single VO2 nanowire with switching controlled by self-heating.

A two-terminal memristor memory based on a single VO2 nanowire is reported that can not only provide switchable resistances in a large range of about four orders of magnitude but can also maintain the resistances by a low bias voltage. The phase transition of the single VO2 nanowire was driven by the bias voltage of 0.34 V without using any heat source. The memristive behavior of the single VO2 nanowire was confirmed by observing the switching and non-volatile properties of resistances when voltage pulses and low bias voltage were applied, respectively. Furthermore, multiple retainable resistances in a large range of about four orders of magnitude can be utilized by controlling the number and the amount of voltage pulses under the low bias voltage. This is a key step towards the development of new low-power and two-terminal memory devices for next-generation non-volatile memories.