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Reconfigurable photovoltaic effect for optoelectronic artificial synapse based on ferroelectric p-n junction

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Abstract

Neuromorphic machine vision has attracted extensive attention on wide fields. However, both current and emerging strategies still suffer from power/time inefficiency, and/or low compatibility, complex device structure. Here we demonstrate a driving-voltage-free optoelectronic synaptic device using non-volatile reconfigurable photovoltaic effect based on MoTe2/α-In2Se3 ferroelectric p-n junctions. This function comes from the non-volatile reconfigurable built-in potential in the p-n junction that is related to the ferroelectric polarization in α-In2Se3. Reconfigurable rectification behavior and photovoltaic effect are demonstrated firstly. Notably, the figure-of-merits for photovoltaic effect like photoelectrical conversion efficiency non-volatilely increases more than one order. Based on this, retina synapse-like vision functions are mimicked. Optoelectronic short-term and long-term plasticity, as well as basic neuromorphic learning and memory rule are achieved without applying driving voltage. Our work highlights the potential of ferroelectric p-n junctions for enhanced solar cell and low-power optoelectronic synaptic device for neuromorphic machine vision.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Nos. 2018YFA0703700 and 2016YFA0200700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 91964203, 61625401, 61851403, 61974036, 61804146, and 61804035), the strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB30000000), and CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS.

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  1. Yanrong Wang and Feng Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yanrong Wang, Feng Wang, Zhenxing Wang, Junjun Wang, Jia Yang, Yuyu Yao, Ningning Li, Marshet Getaye Sendeku & Xueying Zhan

  2. Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Jun He

  3. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Feng Wang, Zhenxing Wang, Junjun Wang & Jia Yang

  4. Sino-Danish college, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yanrong Wang, Zhenxing Wang, Yuyu Yao & Ningning Li

  5. Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yanrong Wang, Yuyu Yao & Ningning Li

  6. School of Physics and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Congxin Shan

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  1. Yanrong Wang
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  2. Feng Wang
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Correspondence to Zhenxing Wang or Jun He.

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Wang, Y., Wang, F., Wang, Z. et al. Reconfigurable photovoltaic effect for optoelectronic artificial synapse based on ferroelectric p-n junction. Nano Res. 14, 4328–4335 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3833-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3833-x

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