Magnetic Electronic Materials and Devices Laboratory

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are formed by association of metal cations or clusters of cations (“nodes”) with soft organic bridging ligands (“linkers”), are a fascinating class of fl exible crystalline hybrid materials offering potential strategy for the construction of fl exible electronics. In this study, a high-quality MOF nanofi lm, HKUST-1, on fl exible gold-coated polyethylene terephthalate substrates is fabricated using liquid phase epitaxy approach. Uniform and reproducible resistive switching effect, which can be sustained under the strain of as high as 2.8%, and over the wide temperature range of –70 to +70 °C, is observed for the fi rst time in the all solid-state Au/HKUST-1/Au/ thin fi lm structures. Through conductive atomic force microscopic and depth-profi ling X-ray photoelectron spectroscopicanalysis, it is proposed that the electric fi eld-induced migration of the Cu 2+ ions, which may lead to subsequent pyrolysis of the trimesic acid linkers and thus the formation of highly conducting fi laments, could be the possible origin for the observed uniform resistance switching in HKUST-1 nanofilms.