Design of an Electrically Written and Optically Read Non-volatile Memory Device Employing BiFeO3/Au Heterostructures with Strong Absorption Resonance

Exploiting new concepts for dense, fast, and nonvolatile random access memory with reduced energy consump- tion is a significant issue for information technology. Here we design an ＇electrically written and optically read＇ information storage device employing BiFeO3/A u heterostruetures with strong absorption resonance. The electro- optic effect is the basis for the device design, which arises from the strong absorption resonance in BiFeO3/Au heterostructures and the electrically tunable significant birefringence of the BiFeO3 film. We first construct a sim- ulation calculation of the BiFeO3/Au structure spectrum and identify absorption resonance and electro-optical modulation characteristics. Following a micro scale partition, the surface reflected light intensity of different polarization units is calculated. The results depend on electric polarization states of the BiFeO3 film, thus BiFeO3/Au heterostructures can essentially be designed as a type of electrically written and optically read infor- mation storage device by utilizing the scanning near-field optical microscopy technology based on the conductive silicon cantilever tip with nanofabricated aperture. This work will shed light on information storage technology.