Epitaxial Growth of Thin Ferroelectric Polymer Films on Graphene Layer for Fully Transparent and Flexible Nonvolatile Memory

Enhancing the device performance of organic memory devices while providing high optical transparency and mechanical flexibility requires an optimized combination of functional materials and smart device architecture design. However, it remains a great challenge to realize fully functional transparent and mechanically durable nonvolatile memory because of the limitations of conventional rigid, opaque metal electrodes. Here, we demonstrate ferroelectric nonvolatile memory devices that use graphene electrodes as the epitaxial growth substrate for crystalline poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) polymer. The strong crystallographic interaction between PVDF-TrFE and graphene results in the orientation of the crystals with distinct symmetry, which is favorable for polarization switching upon the electric field. The epitaxial growth of PVDF-TrFE on a graphene layer thus provides excellent ferroelectric performance with high remnant polarization in metal/ferroelectric polymer/metal devices. Furthermore, a fully transparent and flexible array of ferroelectric field effect transistors was successfully realized by adopting transparent poly[bis(4-phenyl)(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)amine] semiconducting polymer.