Water and air friendly alkali metals synthesis of the h-BN-C QDTs and the utilization in the non-volatile resistive switching memory devices

A novel and facile hydrothermal route was designed to produce h-BN-C quantum dots (h-BN-C QDTs) using h-BN powder as a precursor and Potassium Sodium Tartare as an intercalant. The resulting yellow solution possessed mono or few-layers of quantum dots with an average size of ~2.5 nm. Due to the incorporation of functional groups (carbon, oxygen) on the surface of h-BN, an enhancement of photo luminescent magnitude and a blue shift were observed in photoluminescence spectra from h-BN-C QDTs solution. Further, h-BN-C QDTs exhibits a bright blue fluorescence under the irradiation by a 365 nm UV light. Next, h-BN QDTs was utilized as the dielectric active layer by using simple drop casting method between the electrodes and fabricated the nonvolatile resistive switching devices. The fabricated devices exhibited the nonvolatile bipolar resistive switching characteristics with 10³ ON/OFF ratio and turned ON and OFF threshold voltages of −1.9 V and +1.4 V, respectively. Further, the switching mechanisms of h-BN-C QDTs were found to be space charged trapping. It provides a route toward tailoring the optical and electrical properties of the h-BN materials and can be utilized in the future potential applications.