High-performance van der Waals antiferroelectric CuCrP₂S₆-based memristors

Layered thio- and seleno-phosphate ferroelectrics, such as CuInP₂S₆, are promising building blocks for next-generation nonvolatile memory devices. However, because of the low Curie point, the CuInP₂S₆-based memory devices suffer from poor thermal stability (<42 °C). Here, exploiting the electric field-driven phase transition in the rarely studied antiferroelectric CuCrP₂S₆ crystals, we develop a nonvolatile memristor showing a sizable resistive-switching ratio of ~ 1000, high switching endurance up to 20,000 cycles, low cycle-to-cycle variation, and robust thermal stability up to 120 °C. The resistive switching is attributed to the ferroelectric polarization-modulated thermal emission accompanied by the Fowler–Nordheim tunneling across the interfaces. First-principles calculations reveal that the good device performances are associated with the exceptionally strong ferroelectric polarization in CuCrP₂S₆ crystal. Furthermore, the typical biological synaptic learning rules, such as long-term potentiation/depression and spike amplitude/spike time-dependent plasticity, are also demonstrated. The results highlight the great application potential of van der Waals antiferroelectrics in high-performance synaptic devices for neuromorphic computing.