Natural-Casein-Based Biomemristor with Pinched Current–Voltage Characteristics
Mainak Saha, Sk Masum Nawaz, Bishal Kumar Keshari, Abhijit Mallik
Abstract
A biomaterials based memristor is of great interest for applications in the environment and human friendly electronic systems. Although a pinched current–voltage (I–V) characteristic is a signature of Chua’s memristor model, biomemristors generally exhibit nonpinched I–V response. This work reports the discovery of the pinched I–V characteristics of a natural casein-based biomemristor. Water-soluble sodium caseinate (NaCas), synthesized using natural casein that was extracted from edible animal milk, was used for the fabrication of a Al/NaCas/ITO biomemristor device. In addition to pinched I–V characteristics, the Al/NaCas/ITO device shows improved performance with a sufficiently large resistance window (∼20 times), longer retention time (∼105 s), and comparable cyclic endurance (>180 cycles), as compared with the reported biomemristors reported in the literature. A physical mechanism is proposed to explain the device characteristics.