Ultrathin Conformable Organic Artificial Synapse for Wearable Intelligent Device Applications

Ultrathin conformable artificial synapse platforms that can be used as on-body or wearable chips suggest a path to build next-generation, wearable, intelligent electronic systems that can mimic the synaptic operations of the human brain. So far, an artificial synapse architecture with ultimate mechanical flexibility in a freestanding form while maintaining its functionalities with high stability and accuracy on any conformable substrate has not been demonstrated yet. Here, we demonstrate the first ultrathin artificial synapse (∼500 nm total thickness) that features freestanding ferroelectric organic neuromorphic transistors (FONTs), which can stand alone without a substrate or an encapsulation layer. Our simple dry peel-off process allows integration of the freestanding FONTs with an extremely thin film that is transferable to various conformable substrates. The FONTs exhibit excellent and reliable synaptic functions, which can be modulated by diverse electrical stimuli and relative timing (or temporal order) between the pre- and postsynaptic spikes. Furthermore, the FONTs show sustainable synaptic plasticity even under folded condition ( R = 50 μm, ε = 0.48%) for more than 6000 input spikes. Our study suggests that the ultrathin conformable organic artificial synapse platforms are considered as one of key technologies for realization of wearable intelligent electronics in the future.