Bioinspired High-Performance Neuromorphic Devices Enabled by Thienoviologen-Based Electrochemical Ion Gating.

Journal: Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)
Published Date: Dec 23, 2025

Abstract

Neuromorphic computing is a bioinspired paradigm that emulates the structure and functionality of biological neural networks, demanding cutting-edge materials and device architectures. In this work, we present a bioinspired electrochemical neuromorphic device (BEND) utilizing a thienoviologen-based electrolyte. The incorporation of thiophene groups into the viologen structure (ThV2+) leads to a reduced energy gap, improved radical stability, and enhanced electrochemical activity. The device exhibits excellent ambient stability and continuously tunable conductivity in response to voltage pulse stimulation. When integrated into a convolutional neural network (CNN) for image recognition, BEND achieves an accuracy of nearly 80% on the Fashion-MNIST dataset. Moreover, the device successfully mimics essential synaptic functions such as spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), Pavlovian learning, and supports dual-terminal logic gate operations. These results significantly expand the functional versatility of viologen-based materials in neuromorphic electronics and offer new insights into the design of next-generation electrochemical artificial synapses.

Authors

  • Siyu Sun
    School of Mathematics and Computing (Computational Science and Engineering), Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
  • Yueyan Zhang
    Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Research Center of Frontier science and technology, State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Engineering Research Center of Key Materials for Efficient Utilization of Clean Energy of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Electronic Devices and Material Chemistry, Institute of New Concept Sensors and Molecular Materials, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of New Conceptual Sensors and Molecular Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710054, P.R. China.
  • Zhikang Han
    Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Research Center of Frontier science and technology, State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Engineering Research Center of Key Materials for Efficient Utilization of Clean Energy of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Electronic Devices and Material Chemistry, Institute of New Concept Sensors and Molecular Materials, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of New Conceptual Sensors and Molecular Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710054, P.R. China.
  • Chengjing Liu
    Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Research Center of Frontier science and technology, State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, Engineering Research Center of Key Materials for Efficient Utilization of Clean Energy of Shaanxi Province, Xi'an Key Laboratory of Electronic Devices and Material Chemistry, Institute of New Concept Sensors and Molecular Materials, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of New Conceptual Sensors and Molecular Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710054, P.R. China.
  • Bai Sun
    Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, Centre for Advanced Materials Joining, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada.
  • Wei Zhang
    The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China.
  • Gang He
    School of Economics and Management, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, China.

Keywords

No keywords available for this article.

External Resources

Popular Topics
Recent Journals