CdS Nanoribbon-Based Resistive Switches with Ultrawidely Tunable Power by Surface Charge Transfer Doping

Traditional metal-insulator-metal (MIM)-based resistive switches (RS) possess a high operating current, which can be read directly without an amplifier yet will inevitably produce large power consumption. Rational control of the energy consumption of RS devices is surely desirable to achieve the energy-efficient purpose in a variety of practical applications. Here a surface charge transfer doping (SCTD) strategy is reported to manipulate the operating current as well as power consumption of the RS devices by using doped CdS nanoribbon (NR) as a rheostat. By controlling the concentration of surface dopant of MoO3, the conductivity of doped CdS NR can be tuned in a wide range of nine orders of magnitude, showing the transition from insulator to semiconductor and to conductor. On the basis of CdS NRs with controllable conductivity, the as-fabricated RS devices exhibit an ultrawidely tunable-power consumption from 1 nW, the lowest value reported so far, to 0.1 mW, which is close to the typical values of MIM-based RS devices. In view of the high controllability of the SCTD method, this work opens up unique opportunities for future energy-efficient, performance-tunable, and multifunctional RS devices based on semiconductor nanostructures.