Conceptual

Grain-Boundary Control of Metal-Atom Diffusion in 2D-Material Memristors

A first-principles study of how grain boundaries and dislocation cores in monolayer MoS2 govern the migration of metal adatoms (Au, Cu, Al, Ni, Ag) that form the conductive filaments underlying resistive switching in memristors. Combining Density Functional Theory with Non-Equilibrium Green's Function transport, it shows that grain boundaries with wider interstitial gaps lower the out-of-plane and in-plane diffusion barriers relative to pristine or sulfur-vacancy MoS2, and it links these atomistic differences to the electron conductance and resistive-switching ratio of vertical and lateral memristors.