spectra were obtained on a Bruker Avance 400 spectrometer. NN-Ph-
CatMOM2 was prepared as described in the literature.[14] Cyclic
voltammograms were obtained using a CHI 660 A electrochemical
analyzer. An Ag(s) j AgCl(s) j KCl (satd) reference electrode and a
platinum wire auxiliary electrode were used. All electrochemical
measurements were carried out in a completely degassed solution.
The thickness of the thin film was measured using a spectroscopic
ellipsometer (Model J. A. Woollam VASE) at an incident angle of 60–
708 and in a wavelength range between 200 and 1000 nm.
pulse and to a low conductivity state using a ꢀ3.0 V pulse,
with multiple current measurements for reading at + 0.5 V.
The WRER cycles can be repeatedly performed in an excess
of 1000 cycles (Figure 5c). This device showed no significant
degradation after several hundred WRER cycles. Figure 6
SEEPR experiments were conducted on a JEOL FA100 EPR
spectrometer at the X-band (9.434 GHz) equipped with a JEOL
helical electrolytic cell (JEOL ES-EL30) comprising a 5 mm diameter
quartz tube, gold helical working electrode extending the length of
the resonant cavity, gold auxiliary electrode insulated with Teflon and
concentric to the helix, and a silver wire reference electrode. The
applied bias was controlled with a Cypress Systems, Inc. Omni-101
microprocessor controlled potentiostat. Instrument parameters were
kept constant and set to the following values: Center field 3360 G,
sweep width ꢂ 40 G, 100 kHz modulation width 1 G, amplitude 1.6 ꢀ
100, time constant 0.3 s, scan time 2 min, one scan. A 98.1 mm solution
of NN-Ph-CatMOM2 was prepared in anhydrous N,N-dimethylfor-
mamide containing 100 mm TBAPF6 (TBA = tetra-n-butylammo-
nium). The sample solution (0.8 mL) was added to the electrolytic
cell, the cell inserted into the resonant cavity, and the electrode leads
attached to the potentiostat. The NN EPR signal was observed to
decrease in intensity immediately under a positive (+ 1.2 V) applied
bias. Returning to near neutral (+ 0.1 V) bias restored the NN signal,
with the appearance of a small impurity. The signal was again
decreased in intensity immediately under negative (ꢀ0.4 V) bias, and
again returned to a near neutral (ꢀ0.05 V) bias, with significant
growth of the impurity signal. The final spectrum (ꢀ0.05 V) was
simulated using WinSim to obtain accurate hyperfine coupling
constants (aN).[20] This simulation shows the presence of two radical
species: 58% nitronylnitroxide radical (ꢀaN = 7.58 G) and 42%
iminonitroxide radical (ꢀaNa = 9.29 G and aNb = 4.20 G; see the
Supporting Information, Figure S1).
Preparation of the Au/NN-Ph-CatMOM2/Au device and charac-
terization: Ti/Au metal with a thickness of 50 ꢁ/300 ꢁ was deposited
onto a SiO2/Si substrate by electron-beam evaporation. The surface
roughness was approximately 5 ꢁ (root-mean-square), as measured
by atomic force microscopy (AFM) applied after a rapid thermal
annealing process at 5008C for 30 s. Subsequently, the bottom
electrodes were patterned with a line width of 60 mm using a stepper
and a lift-off process. The bottom electrode was cleaned with piranha
solution (98% H2SO4/30% H2O2 = 3:1 v/v) for 3 min. This was
followed by washing several times with deionized water and ethanol
and a final drying under a stream of nitrogen gas. For fabrication of
the bulk organic memory device, NN-Ph-CatMOM2 in acetonitrile
solution was spun onto an gold substrate at 200 rpm for 10 s, followed
by 1000 rpm for 30 s. The final speed was 2000 rpm for 10 s. The thin
film was dried in a vacuum at room temperature overnight. A gold
electrode (80 nm thick) was evaporated through a shadow mask onto
a molecular layer using the electron beam evaporator under 5.0 ꢀ
10ꢀ7 Torr. SEM-EDS and DSC measurements were used to probe film
formability and crystallinity (Supporting Information, Figures S3 and
S4). The sample was tested in a variable-temperature probe station
(Keithley 4200 semiconductor characterization system unit) under a
vacuum of less than 10ꢀ3 Torr.
Figure 6. Retention times of the ON and OFF states of the NN-Ph-
CatMOM2 device, probed with voltages at 0.5 V. The ON and OFF
states were induced by pulses of +3.0 and ꢀ3.0 V, respectively.
shows the typical retention time measured under inert
conditions. Once the device is switched to the ON state by
applying a positive voltage at + 3.0 V, this state was retained
after 700 s with no degradation. When the ON state was
switched back to the OFF state by a negative voltage pulse
applied at ꢀ3.0 V, the OFF state also was sustained.
In summary, cyclic voltammetry and SEEPR revealed that
the NN radical molecule was a redox-active molecule with
demonstrated switchability in both oxidized and reduced
states. The organic NN radical device bearing a crossbar
structure was easily fabricated by a wet process and showed
both p- and n-type properties that functioned as a memory
device. Based on the simple gold–molecule–gold device
structure, we conclude that the origin of the switchability
and memory phenomena of the NN radical memory device
originated from the organic NN radical molecule, NN-Ph-
CatMOM2. The WRER cycles of the robust radical memory
device showed no significant degradation after several
hundred WRER cycles, even though only one radical thin
layer was used. The transformation of NN to IN observed in
solution cannot be directly related to degradation in the solid-
state device. Such a transformation in the device would be
manifest in an attenuation of current. However, as seen in
Figure 5, the current is stable over at least 1000 cycles. This is
the first known development of voltage-driven organic radical
memory employing only one active layer of organic small
molecules having both p- and n-type properties. Although the
low ON–OFF ratio and switching cycles remained far from
satisfactory in comparison with current silicon technology, our
research on molecularly inherent radical memory provides
new insight into the design of voltage-driven functional
radical molecules.
Received: August 6, 2010
Revised: February 5, 2011
Published online: April 7, 2011
Experimental Section
Organic solvents were freshly distilled from appropriate drying
reagents prior to use. All starting materials were purchased from
Aldrich and used without further purification. 1H and 13C NMR
Keywords: electron paramagnetic resonance · memory devices ·
molecular electronics · nitrogen radicals · organic radicals
.
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 4414 –4418
ꢀ 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
4417