Spatially-correlated neuron transistors with ion-gel gating for brain-inspired applications

•Spatially-correlated and multi-gated neuron transistors with ion-gel dielectrics were demonstrated.•Important neural behaviors and spatially-correlated dendrite information processing were simulated.•Orientation selectivity was illustrated by using the spatial summation functions of dendritic integration.

In this paper, ion-gel gated transistors based on solution-processed indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (In-Ga-Zn-O) semiconductors were fabricated. These transistors consisted of a spatial distribution configuration of multi-in-plane gates. Spike pluses applied on multi-in-plane gates are analogy to massive synaptic inputs from various dendritic positions. The basic neuromorphic functions, such as potentiation or depression behaviors, synaptic plasticity and frequency-dependent filtering, were demonstrated in these devices by applied a spiking on an in-plane gate. The output signal of neuromorphic devices is greatly relevant to the gate position-correlated input signal and the spatially-correlated information processing could advance the capacity of neuromorphic performance. Orientation selectivity was a broadly investigated phenomenon. More importantly, by using the spatial summation functions of dendritic integration, the orientation identification was successfully realized in our transistor with multi-in-plane gates. The spatially-correlated neuromorphic devices are exceedingly promising for the neural information processing and sensing.

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