Phys.org April 25, 2025
The brain’s computing principles and information carriers both differ fundamentally from those of conventional computers. Building on this distinction, an international team of researchers (the Netherlands, South Korea) presented an easy-to-fabricate tapered microchannels that embedded a conducting network of fluidic nanochannels between a colloidal structure. Due to transient salt concentration polarization, their devices were volatile memristors that were stable. The voltage-driven net salt flux and accumulation, that underpin the concentration polarization combined into a diffusion like quadratic dependence of the memory retention time on the channel length, allowing channel design for a specific timescale. They implemented their device as a synaptic element for neuromorphic reservoir computing. Individual channels distinguished various time series, that together represented (handwritten) numbers, for subsequent in silico classification with a simple readout function. According to the researchers their results represent a step toward realizing the fluidic ion channels as a platform to emulate the rich aqueous dynamics of the brain… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Features and properties of our iontronic memristor through theory and experiment. … Credit: PNAS, April 24, 2024, 121 (18) e2320242121