Optically and electrically modulated printed carbon nanotube synaptic transistors with a single input terminal and multi-functional output characteristics

Abstract

The development of new and multi-functional synaptic transistors has become a research highlight in brain science and brain-like intelligence technologies. Here, we report an optically and electrically modulated carbon nanotube synaptic transistor with a single input terminal and multi-functional output characteristics. The optoelectronic response characteristics of carbon nanotube synaptic transistors can be controlled by the pulsed optical and electrical signals via a lightly doped silicon gate electrode as the input terminal. Some important synaptic behaviors including low-pass filtering and non-volatile memory performance were investigated after training by pulsed light and/or voltage stimulations. High neural activities with multiple input and output performances, such as excitatory, inhibitory and logic behaviour (NOR logic gate), were also observed by simultaneously programming the optical and electrical stimulations. As far as we know, this is the first report of a printed carbon nanotube synaptic transistor with a single gate electrode that has the ability to concurrently receive pulsed electrical and optical inputs as well as to realize multi-functional outputs. The results provide an opportunity for the coupling of multiple inputs through different stimulation methods in emerging brain-like synaptic nanoelectronics.