Nanomaterials (Oct 2021)

Artificial Neurons Based on Ag/V<sub>2</sub>C/W Threshold Switching Memristors

  • Yu Wang,
  • Xintong Chen,
  • Daqi Shen,
  • Miaocheng Zhang,
  • Xi Chen,
  • Xingyu Chen,
  • Weijing Shao,
  • Hong Gu,
  • Jianguang Xu,
  • Ertao Hu,
  • Lei Wang,
  • Rongqing Xu,
  • Yi Tong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11112860
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 11
p. 2860

Abstract

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Artificial synapses and neurons are two critical, fundamental bricks for constructing hardware neural networks. Owing to its high-density integration, outstanding nonlinearity, and modulated plasticity, memristors have attracted emerging attention on emulating biological synapses and neurons. However, fabricating a low-power and robust memristor-based artificial neuron without extra electrical components is still a challenge for brain-inspired systems. In this work, we demonstrate a single two-dimensional (2D) MXene(V2C)-based threshold switching (TS) memristor to emulate a leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neuron without auxiliary circuits, originating from the Ag diffusion-based filamentary mechanism. Moreover, our V2C-based artificial neurons faithfully achieve multiple neural functions including leaky integration, threshold-driven fire, self-relaxation, and linear strength-modulated spike frequency characteristics. This work demonstrates that three-atom-type MXene (e.g., V2C) memristors may provide an efficient method to construct the hardware neuromorphic computing systems.

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