Nanomaterial-Based Synaptic Optoelectronic Devices for In-Sensor Preprocessing of Image Data

With the advance in information technologies involving machine vision applications, the demand for energy- and time-efficient acquisition, transfer, and processing of a large amount of image data has rapidly increased. However, current architectures of the machine vision system have inherent limitations in terms of power consumption and data latency owing to the physical isolation of image sensors and processors. Meanwhile, synaptic optoelectronic devices that exhibit photoresponse similar to the behaviors of the human synapse enable in-sensor preprocessing, which makes the front-end part of the image recognition process more efficient. Herein, we review recent progress in the development of synaptic optoelectronic devices using functional nanomaterials and their unique interfacial characteristics. First, we provide an overview of representative functional nanomaterials and device configurations for the synaptic optoelectronic devices. Then, we discuss the underlying physics of each nanomaterial in the synaptic optoelectronic device and explain related device characteristics that allow for the in-sensor preprocessing. We also discuss advantages achieved by the application of the synaptic optoelectronic devices to image preprocessing, such as contrast enhancement and image filtering. Finally, we conclude this review and present a short prospect.