Spiking Flip-Flop Memory in Resonant Tunneling Diode Neurons

Abstract

We report a spiking flip-flop memory mechanism that allows controllably switching between neural-like excitable spike-firing and quiescent dynamics in a resonant tunneling diode (RTD) neuron under low-amplitude (<150 mV pulses) and high-speed (ns rate) inputs pulses. We also show that the timing of the set-reset input pulses is critical to elicit switching responses between spiking and quiescent regimes in the system. The demonstrated flip-flop spiking memory, in which spiking regimes can be controllably excited, stored, and inhibited in RTD neurons via specific low-amplitude, high-speed signals (delivered at proper time instants) offers high promise for RTD-based spiking neural networks, with the potential to be extended further to optoelectronic implementations where RTD neurons and RTD memory elements are deployed alongside for fast and efficient photonic-electronic neuromorphic computing and artificial intelligence hardware.