Tunable memory performances of the porphyrin terminated hyperbranched polyimides

ABSTRACT Herein, a functional hyperbranched polyimide, denoted as ATPP‐HBPI, was synthesized by termination of polyamic acid with 5‐(4‐aminophenyl)‐10, 15, 20‐triphenylporphyrin (ATPP) and chemical imidization. Subsequently, ATPP‐HBPI was coordinated with Zn ion to give Zn‐ATPP‐HBPI. In the HBPIs, the porphyrin terminals acted as the electron donor (D) and the 6FDA moieties acted as the electron acceptor (A) to promote the electron transition. Both ATPP‐HBPI and Zn‐ATPP‐HBPI exhibited good organo‐solubility and high thermal stability. They were used as the electroactive layer to fabricate the memory device with a configuration of indium tin oxide (ITO)/HBPI/Al to evaluate their bistability. The devices exhibited different memory behaviors, WORM for ATPP‐HBPI and SRAM for Zn‐ATPP‐HBPI, respectively. Optical and electrochemical experiments and molecular simulation were carried out to illustrate this phenomenon of performance transformation. The results show that the metallization of terminal of the HBPIs provides a strategy for tailoring the memory characteristics of the devices. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2018, 56, 1953–1961 Two porphyrin‐terminated hyperbranched polyimides were synthesized from a tetra‐amine and 6FDA, followed by termination with 5‐(4‐aminophenyl)‐10, 15, 20‐triphenylporphyrin and coordination with a Zn ion. The memory performance could be tuned from WORM to SRAM by the coordination of the porphyrin terminal.