Flexible VO2 Films for In-Sensor Computing with Ultraviolet Light

With their unique advantages in portability, shape adaptability, and human friendly surfaces, flexible electronics pave the way for the implementation of wearable electronic textiles and human-machine interfaces. Although organic materials are promising for flexible devices because of the low-cost manufacturing and inherent flexibility, they meet challenges in harsh environments such as ultraviolet (UV) irradiation, which limits their applicability in UV sensors. Here, a flexible UV neuromorphic sensor is presented using inorganic vanadium dioxide (VO2) films grown on mica substrates. The flexible device shows UV photoinduced nonvolatile phase transition, and can be reversibly modulated using electrolyte gating. The optical responses remain almost unchanged after 10 000 bending cycles or at small bending radius, exhibiting high tolerance to the bending deformation. Besides, the variations in image recognition accuracy under different bending conditions keep within 1.6%, indicating that the device can be adapted to various deformation conditions. By constructing near-/in-sensor computing architectures using the flexible VO2 neuromorphic sensors with photoinduced nonvolatile phase transition, both static image processing and motion detection are realized without redundant and massive information transfer. This result lays the foundation for the development of flexible UV neuromorphic sensors.

Automated summary

With unique advantages in portability, shape adaptability, and human friendly surfaces, flexible electronics enable wearable electronic textiles and human-machine interfaces. In this study, a flexible UV neuromorphic sensor based on inorganic vanadium dioxide (VO2) films grown on mica substrates is presented. The flexible device exhibits UV photoinduced nonvolatile phase transition and can be modulated reversibly using electrolyte gating, showing high tolerance to bending deformation and adapting to various conditions.