Direct photopolymerization and lithography of multilayer conjugated polymer nanofilms for high performance memristors

Controllable preparation of conjugated polymer nanofilms with desirable pattern, thickness, and multilayer structures plays a critical role in high performance organic electronics. Herein, we report a novel strategy combining direct photopolymerization and in situ growth technique for controllable preparation of multilayer conjugated microporous polymer (CMP) nanofilms. By modulating the irradiation time and photomask shape of photopolymerization, scalable patterned CMP nanofilms with variable thickness and geometries were prepared. By further utilizing the in situ layer-by-layer growing method, multilayer CMP nanofilms comprising identical precursor and different precursors were constructed rationally. Moreover, the polymer vertical diodes based on the multilayer CMP nanofilms exhibited layer number-dependent electrical properties from linear resistor to memristor. The trilayer CMP nanofilms-based memristor showed nonvolatile memory effect with a higher ON/OFF current ratio of up to 1.0 × 103. Our study presents an effective strategy for the precise preparation of multilayer patterned homostructure and heterostructure conjugated polymer nanofilms for high performance integrated polymer electronics.