A tuneable ionic memristor based on bipolar electrochemistry

Abstract

The advancement of neuromorphic computing is driven by progress in computing hardware and architecture. For further improving the energy efficiency of computing, nanofluidic ionic memristors have been rapidly developed for mimicking the ionic mechanisms of biological neurons and synapses. In these systems, designs and syntheses of nanosized pores, channels and 2D-slits are required to accomplish the memristive mechanisms. This study proposes another mechanism to develop an ionic memristor, which is based on a closed electrochemical bipolar cell with a designed bipolar electrode (BPE). Under an applied potential, the different electrochemical reactions on both sides of the BPE would lead to a memristive response with diode-like rectification. More importantly, a bipolar electrochemical memristor allows easy tuning of the response by simply varying the range of the applied electric potential. With a simple and scalable fabrication based on electrodeposition, the present system has great potential for use in neuromorphic architectures.