Highly Reproducible Heterosynaptic Plasticity Enabled by MoS₂/ZrO_2- Heterostructure Memtransistor

Electrically tunable resistive switching of a polycrystalline MoS₂-based memtransistor has attracted a great deal of attention as an essential synaptic component of neuromorphic circuitry because its switching characteristics from the field-induced migration of sulfur defects in the MoS₂ grain boundaries can realize multilevel conductance tunability and heterosynaptic functionality. However, reproducible switching properties in the memtransistor are usually disturbed by the considerable difficulty in controlling the concentration and distribution of the intrinsically existing sulfur defects. Herein, we demonstrate reliable heterosynaptic characteristics using a memtransistor device with a MoS₂/ZrO_2- heterostructure. Compared to the control device with the MoS₂ semiconducting channel, the Schottky barrier height was more effectively modulated by the insertion of the insulating ZrO_2- layer below the MoS₂, confirmed by an ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and the corresponding energy-band structures. The MoS₂/ZrO_2- memtransistor accomplishes dual-terminal (drain and gate electrode) stimulated multilevel conductance owing to the tunable resistive switching behavior under varying gate voltages. Furthermore, the memtransistor exhibits long-term potentiation/depression endurance cycling over 7000 pulses and stable pulse cycling behavior by the pulse stimulus from different terminal regions. The promising candidate as an essential synaptic component of the MoS₂/ZrO_2- memtransistors for neuromorphic systems results from the high recognition accuracy (∼92%) of the deep neural network simulation test, based on the training and inference of handwritten numbers (0-9). The simple memtransistor structure facilitates the implementation of complex neural circuitry.