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Abstract

Vanadium dioxide (VO₂) is a phase change material that can reversibly change between high and low resistivity states through electronic and structural phase transitions. Thus far, VO₂ memory devices have essentially been volatile at room temperature, and nonvolatile memory has required non-ambient surroundings (e.g., elevated temperatures, electrolytes) and long write times. For the first time, here, the authors report the observation of optically addressable nonvolatile memory in VO₂ at room temperature with a readout by voltage oscillations. The read and write times have to be kept shorter than about 150 µs. The writing of the memory and onset of the voltage oscillations have a minimum optical power threshold. Although the physical mechanisms underlying this memory effect require further investigations, this discovery illustrates the potential of VO₂ for new computing devices and architectures, such as artificial neurons and oscillatory neural networks.