Temperature dependence of transport mechanisms in organic multiferroic tunnel junctions

Organic multiferroic tunnel junctions (OMFTJs) with multi-resistance states have been proposed and have drawn intensive interests due to their potential applications, for example in memristor and spintronics based synapse devices. The ferroelectric control of spin polarization at a ferromagnet/ferroelectric organic (FE-Org) interface by electrically switching the ferroelectric polarization of the FE-Org has been recently realized. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the transport properties in OMFTJs, especially the interplay between the ferroelectric domain structure in the organic barrier and the spin polarized electron tunneling through the barrier. Here, we report on a systematic study of the temperature dependent transport behavior in La_0.6Sr_0.4MnO₃/PVDF/Co OMFTJs. It is found that thermal fluctuation of the ferroelectric domains play an important role on the transport properties. When T > 120 K, the opposite temperature dependence of resistance for up and down ferroelectric polarization states results in a rapid diminishing of the tunneling electroresistance. These results contribute to the understanding of the transport properties for designing high performance OMFTJs for memristor and spintronics applications.