Analog and Diffusive Memristors with Copper Based Mixed Ionic Electronic Conductors MIECs as Artificial Synapse and Nociceptor

Abstract

Digital memristors characterized by sharp SET and RESET processes, exhibit resistance bistability analogous to binary logic, making them promising candidates for non-volatile digital memory technologies. However, their adoption has been sluggish due to inherent stochasticity in switching dynamics, energy inefficiency, and slow speeds. These issues are exacerbated by the traditional von-Neumann architecture, which separates memory and computation units, leading to high energy consumption and reduced performance. As AI and IoT technologies evolve, the demand for efficient data processing has surged. To address these challenges, non-von-Neumann architectures like neuromorphic computing (NC) are gaining attraction. While software implementations of NC exist on von-Neumann computers, hardware implementations are essential to meet the increasing demands for data handling. Unfortunately, traditional digital memristors fall short for hardware neuromorphic applications. Instead, memristors that feature analog and threshold switching are crucial for advancing this field. Analog switching is non-volatile switching, but the current change is gradual and relatively linear, giving rise to numerous conductance states that is equivalent to weight updates in synapses. So, analog memristors can mimic biological synapses. In contrast, threshold switches are though still digital, the resistance change is very sharp and unstable (volatile), similar to the spiking in neurons. Hence, with threshold memristors, neurons and receptors (sensory neurons) can be emulated. With these contrasting behaviours, analog memristors and threshold memristors can combinely represent the physical system completely emulating the biological neural network. In this present work, we aimed to achieve these memristive features in redox-based memristors using copper-based mixed ionic electronic conductors (MIECs). newlineFor analog switching, the coupled ionic and electronic conductivity is very crucial.