title: Non-volatile flash memory with discrete bionanodot floating gate assembled by protein template.
abstract: We demonstrated non-volatile flash memory fabrication by utilizing uniformly sized cobalt oxide (Co(3)O(4)) bionanodot (Co-BND) architecture assembled by a cage-shaped supramolecular protein template. A fabricated high-density Co-BND array was buried in a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET) structure to use as the charge storage node of a floating nanodot gate memory. We observed a clockwise hysteresis in the drain current-gate voltage characteristics of fabricated BND-embedded MOSFETs. Observed hysteresis obviously indicates a memory operation of Co-BND-embedded MOSFETs due to the charge confinement in the embedded BND and successful functioning of embedded BNDs as the charge storage nodes of the non-volatile flash memory. Fabricated Co-BND-embedded MOSFETs showed good memory properties such as wide memory windows, long charge retention and high tolerance to repeated write/erase operations. A new pathway for device fabrication by utilizing the versatile functionality of biomolecules is presented.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Materials Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916-5 Takayama, Ikoma, Nara 630-0192, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.forename: Rikako
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tsukamoto
authors.forename: Shigeo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoshii
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yamashita
authors.forename: Yukiharu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Uraoka
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fuyuki