Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
About us Faculty of Science and Engineering Our Research CogniGron

Seminar: Isao Inoue (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST) Tokyo) - Artificial synapses and neurons based on an insulator-to-2D metal transition of a SrTiO3 surface.

When:Mo 12-03-2018 15:00 - 16:00
Where:FSE-Building 5113.0201

This talk aims to advocate a new concept for next-generation neuromorphic devices. We show the spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) synapse made of a single SrTiO3 FET utilising the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG). The artificial synapse based on SrTiO3 exhibits much larger dynamic range and much lower energy consumption compared to the recent emerging artificial synapses especially those utilising resistance switchings. Furthermore, the same single SrTiO3 FET can also become an artificial leaky-integrate and fire (LIF) neuron without a help of any external capacitors and resistors. This is a great advantage for the device integration (miniaturisation). Both our artificial STDP synapse and artificial LIF neuron are compared with the biological counterparts as shown in the figure below.

A virtual back-gate due to the oxygen vacancy migration and piling up, as well as the formation of 2DEG in the SrTiO3 FET would be an important key ingredients to understand why our SrTiO3 FET behaves as both synapse and neuron; this issue will be further discussed in the talk.

Behaviours of the biological synapse and neuron of a rat hippocampal neural cell (top row) compared with those of our artificial synapse and neuron made of a single SrTiO3 FET (bottom row). The coincidences are sufficiently good.
Behaviours of the biological synapse and neuron of a rat hippocampal neural cell (top row) compared with those of our artificial synapse and neuron made of a single SrTiO3 FET (bottom row). The coincidences are sufficiently good.