Zhou Ning, Cui Ting, Lei Zhouyue, Wu Peiyi
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Center for Advanced Low-Dimension Materials, Donghua University, Shanghai, China.
Nat Commun. 2025 May 16;16(1):4573. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-59944-3.
Mimicking biological systems' sensing, learning, and memory capabilities in synthetic soft materials remains challenging. While significant progress has been made in sensory functions in ionogels, their learning and memory capabilities still lag behind biological systems. Here, we introduce cation-π interactions and a self-adaptable ionic-double-layer interface in bilayer ionogels to control ion transport. Fast ion response enables sensing and learning, while slow ion relaxation supports long-term memory. The ionogels achieve bioinspired functions, including sensitization, habituation, classical conditioning, and multimodal memory, with low energy consumption (0.06 pJ per spike). Additionally, the ionogels exhibit mechanical adaptability, such as stretchability, self-healing, and reconfigurability, making them ideal for soft robotics. Notably, the ionogels enable a robotic arm to mimic the selective capture behavior of a Venus flytrap. This work bridges the gap between biological intelligence and artificial systems, offering promising applications in bioinspired, energy-efficient sensing, learning, and memory.
在合成软材料中模拟生物系统的传感、学习和记忆能力仍然具有挑战性。虽然离子凝胶在传感功能方面取得了重大进展，但其学习和记忆能力仍落后于生物系统。在此，我们在双层离子凝胶中引入阳离子-π相互作用和自适应离子双层界面来控制离子传输。快速离子响应实现传感和学习，而缓慢的离子弛豫支持长期记忆。这些离子凝胶实现了受生物启发的功能，包括敏化、习惯化、经典条件反射和多模态记忆，且能耗低（每个脉冲0.06 pJ）。此外，离子凝胶具有机械适应性，如可拉伸性、自愈性和可重构性，使其成为软机器人的理想材料。值得注意的是，离子凝胶能使机械臂模仿捕蝇草的选择性捕获行为。这项工作弥合了生物智能与人工系统之间的差距，在受生物启发的、节能的传感、学习和记忆方面具有广阔的应用前景。
