Nonvolatile resistance switching in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides: an explanation

Abstract

Recently, Ge et. al. [1] showed that in atomic sheets of transition metal (from the group VI B) dichalcogenides (TMD) (Fig. 1) (MoS2, MoSe2, WS2 and WSe2) nonvolatile resistance switching occurs. In order to understand this behaviour of mono-layer TMD, at these very intense electric fields (E = 1.43*109 V/m), we advance the hypothesis (and structural models) that the nonvolatile resistance switching might occur by two successive structural transformations due to local coordination changes of the transition metal and the chalcogen atoms.