Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 56: Focussed Session: Resistive Effects II

DS 56.2: Topical Talk

Friday, March 11, 2016, 10:00–10:30, H11

Tunnel junction based memristors as artificial synapses — •Andy Thomas — Leibniz Institute of Solid State and Materials Research (IFW Dresden), Institute for Metallic Materials, Dresden, Germany

The synapse is a crucial element in biological neural networks, but a simple electronic equivalent has been absent. This complicates the development of hardware that imitates biological architectures in the nervous system. Now, the recent progress in the experimental realization of memristive devices has renewed interest in artificial neural networks. The resistance of a memristive system depends on its past states and exactly this functionality can be used to mimic the synaptic connections in a (human) brain [1].

We prepared magnesia, tantalum oxide and barium titanate based junction structures and investigated their memristive properties. We increased the amplitude of the resistance change from 10% up to 100%. Utilizing the memristive properties, we looked into the use of the junction structures as artificial synapses. We observed analogs of long-term potentiation, long-term depression and spike-time dependent plasticity in these simple two terminal devices [2]. Finally, we prepared these junctions on top of an integrated neuromorphic circuit to store analog synaptic weights and and support the implementation of biologically plausible learning mechanisms in the future.

[1] A. Thomas, J. Phys. D: Apple. Phys. 46 (2013) 093001

[2] A. Thomas et al., Frontiers in neuroscience 9 (2015) 241