Organic Electrochemical Neuron Emulating Neuromorphic Perception

Northwestern University IRG-2 has developed a novel “leaky integrate-and-fire” organic electrochemical neuron for neuromorphic perception systems based on vertical organic electrochemical transistors (vOECTs). Essential to this realization is the introduction of a new n-type ionic electronic conductive material that provides a balanced response to p-type vOECTs, thereby enabling high-performance complementary circuits. The resulting organic electrochemical neurons produce spiking signals over a wide frequency range, which allows for advanced neuromorphic applications such as perception emulation. This work opens new possibilities for a wide range of applications in next-generation intelligent soft robotics, brain-machine interfaces, and energy-efficient hardware accelerators for artificial intelligence.