Bipolar resistive switching in biomaterials: Case studies of DNA and melanin-based bio-memristive devices

The biomaterial-based memristive devices are attracting massive attention due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, reusability, and eco-friendly nature properties. The present chapter intends to review the basic concepts and state of the art in biomaterial-based resistive switching devices. Based on our experimental results, the chapter, in particular, focuses on the synthesis, characterization, and nonvolatile memory performance of DNA and melanin memristive devices. The developed DNA based organic nonvolatile memory device was found to demonstrate bipolar resistive switching characteristics and operate at very low resistive switching voltage (±0.5 V). Moreover, double-valued charge-magnetic flux characteristics suggested the memristive like nature of the DNA-based device. The DNA memristive device shows good endurance (200 cycles) property and retained data up to 10³ seconds with good uniformity in the temporal distribution. In the case of melanin, devices were developed using three different bottom electrodes (FTO, TiN, and flexible PET) and their resistive switching performance was compared. The results suggested that the resistive switching properties of the Al/melanin/FTO-based device are comparatively better than other devices. The endurance of the Al/melanin/FTO-based device was stable over 10³ cycles and data can be retained for a long time (3×103s). The conduction and resistive switching mechanisms of both devices are also presented.