Multi-gate neuron-like transistors based on ensembles of aligned nanowires on flexible substrates

Abstract

The intriguing way the receptors in biological skin encode the tactile data has inspired the development of electronic skins (e-skin) with brain-inspired or neuromorphic computing. Starting with local (near sensor) data processing, there is an inherent mechanism in play that helps to scale down the data. This is particularly attractive when one considers the huge data produced by large number of sensors expected in a large area e-skin such as the whole-body skin of a robot. This underlines the need for biological skin like processing in the e-skin. Herein, we present multi-gate field-effect transistors (v-FET) having capacitively coupled floating gate (FG) to mimic some of the neural functions. The v-FETs are obtained by deterministic assembly of ZnO nanowires on a flexible substrate using contactless dielectrophoresis method, followed metallization using conventional microfabrication steps. The spatial summation of two presynaptic inputs (applied at multiple control gates) of the transistor confirm their neuron-like response. The temporal summation (such as paired-pulse facilitation) by presented v-FETs further confirm their neuron-like mimicking with one presynaptic input. The temporal and spatial summation functions, demonstrated by the v-FET presented here, could open interesting new avenues for development of neuromorphic electronic skin (v-skin) with possibility of biological-skin like distributed computing.