The environment dependence and electric properties of Ni/methyl red/Ni organic device were both theoretically and experimentally investigated at room temperature This volatile memory consists of methyl-red layer (similar to 200 nm) with a planar geometry The results demonstrated that (a) applying low voltage pulses increases conductivity from 10(-6) S cm(-1) (OFF) to 10(-5) S cm(-1) (ON) (b) measurements of current-voltage show a peak-to valley ratio of 8 1 [10 1] under positive [negative] bias (c) the electric feature of this dye memory is due the Schottky barrier in the metal/methyl red interface with negative differential resistance effect These semiconductor characteristics indicate that this azo aromatic compound is promising for applications in volatile memory arrays (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved