A 2D-SnSe film with ferroelectricity and its bio-realistic synapse application

Catering to the general trend of artificial intelligence development, simulating humans' learning and thinking behavior has become the research focus. Second-order memristors, which are more analogous to biological synapses, are the most promising devices currently used in neuromorphic/brain-like computing. However, few second-order memristors based on two-dimensional (2D) materials have been reported, and the inherent bionic physics needs to be explored. In this work, a second-order memristor based on 2D SnSe films was fabricated by the pulsed laser deposition technique. The continuously adjustable conductance of Au/SnSe/NSTO structures was achieved by gradually switching the polarization of a ferroelectric SnSe layer. The experimental results show that the bio-synaptic functions, including spike-timing-dependent plasticity, short-term plasticity and long-term plasticity, can be simulated using this two-terminal devices. Moreover, stimulus pulses with nanosecond pulse duration were applied to the device to emulate rapid learning and long-term memory in the human brain. The observed memristive behavior is mainly attributed to the modulation of the width of the depletion layer and barrier height is affected, at the SnSe/NSTO interface, by the reversal of ferroelectric polarization of SnSe materials. The device energy consumption is as low as 66 fJ, being expected to be applied to miniaturized, high-density, low-power neuromorphic computing.