Artificial HfO/TiO Synapses with Controllable Memory Window and High Uniformity for Brain-Inspired Computing.

Artificial neural networks, as a game-changer to break up the bottleneck of classical von Neumann architectures, have attracted great interest recently. As a unit of artificial neural networks, memristive devices play a key role due to their similarity to biological synapses in structure, dynamics, and electrical behaviors. To achieve highly accurate neuromorphic computing, memristive devices with a controllable memory window and high uniformity are vitally important. Here, we first report that the controllable memory window of an HfO/TiO memristive device can be obtained by tuning the thickness ratio of the sublayer. It was found the memory window increased with decreases in the thickness ratio of HfO and TiO. Notably, the coefficients of variation of the high-resistance state and the low-resistance state of the nanocrystalline HfO/TiO memristor were reduced by 74% and 86% compared with the as-deposited HfO/TiO memristor. The position of the conductive pathway could be localized by the nanocrystalline HfO and TiO dot, leading to a substantial improvement in the switching uniformity. The nanocrystalline HfO/TiO memristive device showed stable, controllable biological functions, including long-term potentiation, long-term depression, and spike-time-dependent plasticity, as well as the visual learning capability, displaying the great potential application for neuromorphic computing in brain-inspired intelligent systems.