Self-powered data storage and erasing of nanoscale flash memory by triboelectricity

Abstract

As a mean of preventing unintentional data disclosure, it is important to irrecoverably eliminate data ona mobile device. Transient electronics, electronics that is designed to disappear or can be destroyed in acontrollable manner, has been actively researched in this regard. Traditionally, irreversible reactions suchas physical or chemical destruction have been used to erase data completely. However, these techniqueseither permanently destroy a memory device or require external voltage to delete data. In this thesis,a self-powered data-erasing method for nanoscale flash memory devices which uses triboelectricity viaa kill switch is first demonstrated. Tribotronic system, a system that utilizes triboelectricity to a unittransistor, is carefully designed, fabricated, and characterized beforehand in order to demonstrate theproposed security system. Abnormal behavior of the tribotronic device compared to a conventionaltransistor has been compared. Based on the understanding on the tribotronics system, we demonstrateda system that one-time touch of the kill switch by a finger wearing a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)glove can set data stored in flash memory is set to the ‘1′state with low-level triboelectricity, allowing thememory to be reused afterward. Moreover, we further demonstrated that the memory can be permanentlydestroyed by a single touch of the kill switch with a finger without a glove that generates high-leveltriboelectricity. These erase methods not only provide a novel method of self-powered irrecoverable dataerasing, but also enriches an understanding of a tribotronic system.