This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
As artificial intelligence moves increasingly toward edge devices, researchers are exploring electronic components that can combine memory and information processing. Memristive and synaptic devices are of particular interest because their electrical conductance can retain information about previous inputs, providing a physical basis for brain-inspired computing.
A research team led by Daisuke Kiriya at The University of Tokyo, with Durgadevi Elamaran and colleagues, investigated a different way to control memory behavior in a two-dimensional semiconductor device. Instead of introducing a switching material throughout the channel, the researchers selectively modified the electrical contacts of a planar MoS₂ memtransistor using a solution-based AuCl₃ treatment.
The contact treatment changes the electronic environment in which the metal electrode meets MoS₂. Measurements indicate that charge trapping and detrapping at this interface dynamically alter the effective Schottky barrier that controls carrier injection. This interfacial mechanism produces smooth, bipolar resistive switching while leaving the intrinsic MoS₂ channel largely unmodified.
Temperature-dependent electrical measurements supported a contact-limited transport mechanism. The extracted effective Schottky barrier height increased from approximately 40.8 meV in the pristine device to approximately 196 meV after AuCl₃ treatment. Raman spectroscopy, XPS and AFM were used to examine the material and chemical changes associated with the modified interface.
The researchers then tested whether the same contact-controlled dynamics could reproduce functions associated with biological synapses.
Under drain-voltage pulse stimulation, the device exhibited gradual long-term potentiation and depression, spike-amplitude-dependent plasticity and timing-dependent conductance changes.
Source link
