Proton-Gated Synaptic Transistors, Based on an Electron-Beam Patterned Nafion Electrolyte

Neuromorphic processors using artificial neural networks are the center of attention for energy-efficient analog computing. Artificial synapses act as building blocks in such neural networks for parallel information processing and data storage. Herein we describe the fabrication of a proton-gated synaptic transistor using a Nafion electrolyte thin film, which is patterned by electron-beam lithography (EBL). The device has an active channel of indium-zinc-oxide (IZO) between the source and drain electrodes, which shows Ohmic behavior with a conductance level on the order of 100 μS. Under voltage applications to the gate electrode, the channel conductance is changed due to the injection and extraction of protons between the IZO channel and the Nafion electrolyte, emulating various synaptic functions with short-term and long-term plasticity. When positive (negative) gate voltage pulses are consecutively applied, the device exhibits long-term potentiation (depression) at the same number of steps as the number of input pulses. Based on these characteristics, an artificial neural network using this transistor shows ∼84% image recognition accuracy for handwritten digits. The subject transistor also successfully mimics paired-pulse facilitation and depression, Hebbian spike-timing-dependent plasticity, and Pavlovian associative learning followed by extinction activities. Finally, dynamical pattern image memorization is demonstrated in a 5 × 5 array of these synaptic transistors. The results indicate that EBL patternable Nafion electrolytes have great potential for use in the fabrication and circuit-level integration of synaptic devices for neuromorphic computing applications.