Premium
Artificial Synapses Emulated by an Electrolyte‐Gated Tungsten‐Oxide Transistor
Author(s) -
Yang JingTing,
Ge Chen,
Du JianYu,
Huang HeYi,
He Meng,
Wang Can,
Lu HuiBin,
Yang GuoZhen,
Jin KuiJuan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.201801548
Subject(s) - materials science , neural facilitation , synaptic plasticity , long term potentiation , transistor , synapse , synaptic weight , neuroscience , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , voltage , computer science , electrical engineering , excitatory postsynaptic potential , biology , artificial neural network , artificial intelligence , engineering , biochemistry , receptor , inhibitory postsynaptic potential
Considering that the human brain uses ≈10 15 synapses to operate, the development of effective artificial synapses is essential to build brain‐inspired computing systems. In biological synapses, the voltage‐gated ion channels are very important for regulating the action‐potential firing. Here, an electrolyte‐gated transistor using WO 3 with a unique tunnel structure, which can emulate the ionic modulation process of biological synapses, is proposed. The transistor successfully realizes synaptic functions of both short‐term and long‐term plasticity. Short‐term plasticity is mimicked with the help of electrolyte ion dynamics under low electrical bias, whereas the long‐term plasticity is realized using proton insertion in WO 3 under high electrical bias. This is a new working approach to control the transition from short‐term memory to long‐term memory using different gate voltage amplitude for artificial synapses. Other essential synaptic behaviors, such as paired pulse facilitation, the depression and potentiation of synaptic weight, as well as spike‐timing‐dependent plasticity are also implemented in this artificial synapse. These results provide a new recipe for designing synaptic electrolyte‐gated transistors through the electrostatic and electrochemical effects.