Nanowire photodetectors: Path to single physical artificial neurons

Abstract

Neurons are basic units for information processing in biological systems. Targeting to have the efficiency of information processing in biological systems, artificial neural network (ANN) has been studied for decades. However, it remains challenging today to realize single physical artificial neurons so that one can construct an ANN in a bottom-up manner. Herein, we show that by using an innovative light-detecting semiconductor nanowire structure, neuronal features more close to single, physical artificial neurons can be emulated, including excitation and inhibition, threshold, refractory period, and temporal summation. The analogy between the presented neuron-like nanowire photodetectors and neurons in the human retina system is also discussed. This study lays the cornerstone to construct a physical ANN bottom-up.