Memory effects in bidimensional carbon nanochannels

Memristors are electronic devices enabling both information storage and in-place processing. They are at the core of many recent, bio-inspired attempts of overcoming the challenges faced by modern computers, from energy consumption to computation time. However, most of these devices rely on solid-state technologies to operate, in contrast with the brain’s purely electrolytic machinery. Here we report a novel memristor effect in recently developed carbon bidimensional ionic channels¹. We show that these nanofluidic memristors have hour-long memory and demonstrate that the effect can be tuned by changing the type of ion. Our results can be rationalized in terms of an accumulation of ions inside the channel due to its asymmetric entrance. Our nanofluidic memristor can serve as a foundation for biomimetic iontronic applications.

Reference: 

¹T.Emmerich et al. Enhanced nanofluidic transport in activated carbon nanochannels. In review.