Electrolyte-Gated Synaptic Transistor with Oxygen Ions

Artificial synaptic devices are the essential hardware of neuromorphic computing systems, which can simultaneously perform signal processing and information storage between two neighboring artificial neurons. Emerging electrolyte-gated transistors have attracted much attention for efficient synaptic emulation by using an addition gate terminal. Here, an electrolyte-gated synaptic device based on the SrCoOx (SCO) films is proposed. It is demonstrated that the reversible modulation of SCO phase transforms the brownmillerite SrCoO2.5 and perovskite SrCoO3-delta, through controlling the insertion and extraction of oxygen ions with electrolyte gating. Nonvolatile multilevel conduction states can be realized in the SCO films following this route. The synaptic functions such as the long-term potentiation and depression of synaptic weight, spike-timing-dependent plasticity, as well as spiking logic operations in the device are successfully mimicked. These results provide an alternative avenue for future neuromorphic devices via electrolyte-gated transistors with oxygen ions.