Professor Tae Geun Kim (left) from the School of Electrical Engineering at Korea University and Ph.D. student Atul C. Khot. Photo: Korea University.

Professor Tae Geun Kim's research team from the School of Electrical Engineering at Korea University has developed a key technology to enhance electrical and ionic transport characteristics in synaptic devices by applying a 'three-dimensional titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoflower structure derived from Ti3C2Tx MXene.'
 

The team also developed synaptic devices with high integration and fast switching speeds, enhancing CMOS technology compatibility and device stability.

With the increasing demand for next-generation non-volatile memory devices, there is a growing need for artificial synaptic devices with low power consumption for big data processing. To meet these demands, extensive research is being conducted on various forms of low-dimensional nanomaterials and devices.

However, synaptic devices based on these materials face reliability issues as their size decreases, making it difficult to maintain a sufficient amount of electrons.

To address this issue, the research team successfully synthesized a three-dimensional TiO2 nanoflower (NF) structure and used it as the active layer in synaptic devices, significantly reducing the operating voltage and enhancing device stability.

Particularly, the aluminum (Al) used as the top electrode readily oxidizes in the air, forming a very thin AlOx layer that provides more defects in the active layer, creating strong conductive filaments. This reduces the interfacial resistance between the electrode and the active layer, facilitating charge movement within the device and lowering the operating voltage.
 

These synaptic devices mimic the non-volatile memory function of biological synapses, making them useful for transmitting electrical and chemical signals in AI computing systems that function similarly to the brain.

This research demonstrated the feasibility of implementing low-cost, high-performance memristor and synaptic devices by simultaneously oxidizing and alkalizing Ti3C2Tx MXene etched with hydrofluoric acid (HF) through ion exchange and calcination processes.

The significance of this research was recognized, and the results were published online in February in the international journal "Journal of Materials Science & Technology" (IF: 10.319, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) ranking: top 1.9%).

The study was supported by the Leader (Creative) Research Program of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), along with the Samsung Electronics-Korea University Research Center.

Reporter: Bok Hyun-Myung (hmbok@dailysmart.co.kr)
Source: Smart Economy (https://www.dailysmart.co.kr)