Emotion-modulated visual perception in ultra-low-energy flexible neuromorphic synaptic transistors enabled by directionally polarized lactam-based polymer electrets

Abstract

<p>Electret materials are receiving intensive scrutiny in the field of neuromorphic electronics owing to their remarkable capability to retain charges. This work presents a flexible neuromorphic synaptic transistor (NST) with multimodal neuromorphic computation and multiwavelength light response using a strong-polarity lactam-based polymer electret. The NSTs exhibited excellent multimodal performance (even bent at a curvature of 5 mm), including ultra-low energy consumption (4.8 aJ for single optical event), broadband response (395–620 nm), short/long-term plasticity, pair-pulse facilitation (PPF, as high as 241 %), spike voltage/frequency/duration/number-dependent plasticity, good learning-forgetting-relearning feature, and high recognition accuracy of 89.7 % by handwritten digital datasets. Interestingly, the electrical stimulation is able to affect the optical excitatory post-synaptic current, which is attributed to the PVP directional polarization effect. This makes the gate voltage of the NSTs can function as an external parameter like human emotion that influences visual perception and thereby reflecting visual adaptive characteristics. Our work suggests a promising strategy toward developing wearable artificial neuromorphic systems with high-efficiency computing in memory (CiM) ability.</p>