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Updated: Jun 29, 2025

Assembly and Characterization of Biomolecular Memristors Consisting of Ion Channel-doped Lipid Membranes
Published on: March 9, 2019
Flexible and Energy-Efficient Synaptic Transistor with Quasi-Linear Weight Update Protocol by Inkjet Printing of
Yushan Li1,2, Wei Cai3, Ruiqiang Tao1,2
1Institute for Advanced Materials, South China Academy of Advanced Optoelectronics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Abstract:
Inkjet printing artificial synapse is cost-effective but challenging in emulating synaptic dynamics with a sufficient number of effective weight states under ultralow voltage spiking operation. A synaptic transistor gated by inkjet-printed composite dielectric of polar-electret polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and high-k zirconia oxide (ZrO) is proposed and thus synthesized to solve this issue. Quasi-linear weight update with a large variation margin is obtained through the coupling effect and the facilitation of dipole orientation, which can be attributed to the orderly arranged molecule chains induced by the carefully designed microfluidic flows. Crucial features of biological synapses including long-term plasticity, spike-timing-dependence-plasticity (STDP), "Learning-Experience" behavior, and ultralow energy consumption (<10 fJ/pulse) are successfully implemented on the device. Simulation results exhibit an excellent image recognition accuracy (97.1%) after 15 training epochs, which is the highest for printed synaptic transistors. Moreover, the device sustained excellent endurance against bending tests with radius down to 8 mm. This work presents a very viable solution for constructing the futuristic flexible and low-cost neural systems.
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