Over the past few decades, electronics engineers have been trying to develop new neuromorphic hardware, systems that mirror the organization of neurons in the human brain. These systems could run artificial intelligence (AI) models, particularly artificial neural networks (ANNs) more reliably and efficiently than existing devices.
An advantage of neuromorphic systems would be the ability to store many stable memory states, similarly to how synapses (i.e., junctions between neurons) store different connection strengths. A promising route to realize these devices entails the use of ferroelectric materials, which exhibit spontaneous electric polarization and can maintain this polarization even in the absence of electricity.
This property of ferroelectric materials makes them advantageous for the creation of non-volatile memories, devices that can store information without having to be continuously powered. They could also be used to create transistors, components that control the flow of current through electronic devices.
Researchers at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics recently introduced a new ferroelectric transistor in which layers of atom-thin materials can slide slightly in relation to each other. This sliding transistor, introduced in a recent paper published in Nature Electronics, was found to store 3,024 stable polarization states, which essentially means that it can hold electric charge patterns in a wide range of different ways.
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