posted on 2024-04-26, 10:29authored byPeiyue Li, Junjie Liu, Jun-Hui Yuan, Yechang Guo, Shaofeng Wang, Pan Zhang, Wei Wang
Creating artificial synapses that can interact with biological
neural systems is critical for developing advanced intelligent systems.
However, there are still many difficulties, including device morphology
and fluid selection. Based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical System technologies,
we utilized two immiscible electrolytes to form a liquid/liquid interface
at the tip of a funnel nanochannel, effectively enabling a wafer-level
fabrication, interactions between multiple information carriers, and
electron-to-chemical signal transitions. The distinctive ionic transport
properties successfully achieved a hysteresis in ionic transport,
resulting in adjustable multistage conductance gradient and synaptic
functions. Notably, the device is similar to biological systems in
terms of structure and signal carriers, especially for the low operating
voltage (200 mV), which matches the biological neural potential (∼110
mV). This work lays the foundation for realizing the function of iontronics
neuromorphic computing at ultralow operating voltages and in-memory
computing, which can break the limits of information barriers for
brain–machine interfaces.