An ultrasmall organic synapse for neuromorphic computing

High-performance organic neuromorphic devices with miniaturized dimensions and robust computing capability are critical for brain-inspired intelligence. Yet, the structural inhomogeneity of most organic materials hampers reliable downscaling to the nanoscale and high-density integration. Here, a semicrystalline polymer, PBFCL10, is designed with ordered molecular packing to regulate dense and uniform conductive nanofilament formation. This enables an organic synapse with a minimum device size of 50 nm and a highest integration of 1 Kb (32 × 32). The PBFCL10 synapses exhibit linear switching across 32 conductance states with high uniformity (98.89% cycle-to-cycle and 99.71% device-to-device). A mixed-signal neuromorphic hardware system combining the organic neuromatrix and an FPGA controller executes spiking-plasticity-related algorithms for decision-making tasks.

Shuzhi Liu, Jianmin Zeng, Zhixin Wu, Han Hu, Ao Xu, Xiaohe Huang, Weilin Chen, Qilai Chen, Zhe Yu, Yinyu Zhao, Rong Wang, Tingting Han, Chao Li, Pingqi Gao, Hyunwoo Kim, Seung Jae Baik, Ruoyu Zhang, Zhang Zhang, Peng Zhou, Gang Liu