Surface-anchored metal-organic framework (SURMOF) thin films exhibit exciting chemical and physical properties, which can be controlled in a straightforward fashion to realize numerous applications.

Engelbert Redel, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, and colleagues have characterized resistive switching in crystalline SURMOF films of roughly 10 nm, 20 nm, and 50 nm thickness. The material was a typical metal-organic framework composed of Cu²⁺ dimers connected by benzenetricarboxylate (BTC) units, anchored to surface-functionalized Au-coated Si substrates.

The researchers demonstrated bipolar switching characteristics in combination with the ability to deposit monolithically oriented crystalline SURMOF thin films with well-defined properties. By using conductive substrates as bottom and top electrodes, these metal-organic hybrid materials act as novel nonvolatile resistive random-access memory (RRAM) devices.

The huge flexibility of the SURMOF-RRAM device was further enhanced by loading guest molecules (e.g., ferrocene) into the free pores of the framework. This result demonstrates the potential of SURMOF thin films as scalable active materials for the next-generation of digital processing and organic-based microelectronic devices.

• Resistive Switching Nanodevices based on Metal-Organic Frameworks,
  Zhengbang Wang, David Nminibapiel, Pragya Shrestha, Jianxi Liu, Wei Guo, Peter Georg Weidler, Helmut Baumgart, Christof Woell, Engelbert Redel,
  ChemNanoMat 2015.
  DOI: 10.1002/cnma.201500143