Nitrogen and aluminum-nitrogen doped graphene for non-volatile resistive memory applications

Doping is a key strategy used to tune the electronic properties of graphene. Calculations have shown that graphene doped with Al has potential applications in the sensing of toxic gases. However, the realization of Al-doped graphene in experiments has proven to be a challenge. In this study, we successfully doped graphene with both N and a combination of Al and N using a microwave process suitable for large-scale production. Several characterization methods such as Raman spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) were used to confirm the composition, and therefore the successful doping, of the graphene. Doping and co-doping are found to increase the conductivity of graphene. It is also demonstrated that the doped graphene shows well-defined resistive memory properties when included in a sandwich structure consisting of polystyrene/doped graphene/polystyrene. The on-and-off voltage is found to be 2 V, making the AlN co-doped graphene suitable for applications in resistive memory devices.