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Memristors with analogue switching and high on/off ratios using a van der Waals metallic cathode

Nature Electronics volume 8, pages 36–45 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Neuromorphic computing based on memristors could help meet the growing demand for data-intensive computing applications such as artificial intelligence. Analogue memristors with multiple conductance states are of particular use in high-efficiency neuromorphic computing, but their weight mapping capabilities are typically limited by small on/off ratios. Here we show that memristors with analogue resistive switching and large on/off ratios can be created using two-dimensional van der Waals metallic materials (graphene or platinum ditelluride) as the cathodes. The memristors use silver as the top anode and indium phosphorus sulfide as the switching medium. Previous approaches have focused on modulating ion motion using changes to the resistive switching layer or anode, which can lower the on/off ratios. In contrast, our approach relies on the van der Waals cathode, which allows silver ion intercalation/de-intercalation, creating a high diffusion barrier to modulate ion motion. The strategy can achieve analogue resistive switching with an on/off ratio up to 108, over 8-bit conductance states and attojoule-level power consumption. We use the analogue properties to perform the chip-level simulation of a convolutional neural network that offers high recognition accuracy.

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Fig. 1: Analogue switching with a large on/off ratio using vdW metallic GR as the cathode.
Fig. 2: Multilevel switching in the Ag/IPS/GR memristor.
Fig. 3: Analogue switching performance of an IPS memristor using multilayer vdW PtTe2 as the cathode.
Fig. 4: Analogue switching mechanism.
Fig. 5: Chip-level implementation of a CNN.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2018YFA0703700 (J.H.)), National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. U23A20364 (J.H.) and 62204175 (Y.L.)), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (no. BK20220280 (Y.L.)) and Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (no. 2022CFB735 (Y.L.)). We also acknowledge the Center for Electron Microscopy of Wuhan University for their substantial support.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yesheng Li, Yao Xiong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of Ministry of Education, and School of Physical and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Yesheng Li, Xiaolin Zhang, Lei Yin, Yiling Yu, Hao Wang & Jun He

  2. Suzhou Institute of Wuhan University, Suzhou, China

    Yesheng Li

  3. School of Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

    Yao Xiong

  4. State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Semiconductors (College of Integrated Circuits), Hunan University, Changsha, China

    Lei Liao

  5. Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology, Wuhan, China

    Jun He

  6. Institute of Semiconductors, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou, China

    Jun He

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Contributions

This project was supervised and directed by J.H. and Y.L. Y.L. conceived this work. Y.L. and Y.X. designed the experiments. Y.L. and L.Y. conducted the device fabrication and electrical measurements. Y.L., H.W., Y.Y. and L.L. performed the material characterization. X.Z. conducted the density functional theory calculation. Y.X. performed the image recognition. All authors contributed to the discussion and analysis of the results. Y.L. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yesheng Li or Jun He.

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Nature Electronics thanks Wenjing Jie, Huajun Sun and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–39, Tables 1–4, Notes 1–5 and References.

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Li, Y., Xiong, Y., Zhang, X. et al. Memristors with analogue switching and high on/off ratios using a van der Waals metallic cathode. Nat Electron 8, 36–45 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-024-01269-y

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