Theory of nonvolatile resistive switching in monolayer molybdenum disulfide with passive electrodes

Abstract Resistive-memory devices promise to revolutionize modern computer architecture eliminating the data-shuttling bottleneck between memory and processing unit. Recent years have seen a surge of experimental demonstrations such built upon two-dimensional materials based metal–insulator–metal structures. However, fundamental mechanism nonvolatile resistive switching has remained elusive. Here, we conduct reactive molecular dynamics simulations for sulfur vacancy inhabited monolayer molybdenum disulfide-based device with inert electrode systems gain insight into phenomena. We observe that application suitable electric field, at positions, atom from other plane pops gets arrested in atoms. Rigorous first principles calculations surprisingly reveal localized metallic states (virtual filament) stronger chemical bonding this new atomic arrangement, explaining switching. further Joule heating plays crucial role restoring popped its original position. The proposed theory, which delineates both unipolar bipolar switching, may provide useful guidelines designing high-performance resistive-memory-based computing architecture.