Synaptic plasticity in zinc oxide-based flexible invisible transparent memristor by modulating oxygen concentration

Abstract

Artificial synapses based on memristors are used in emulating the synaptic plasticity behavior of a human brain. Here, we have proposed a transparent memristor based on aluminum zinc oxide (AZO) on a flexible substrate—polyethylene naphthalate. We have analyzed the elemental composition of the gadget subjected to the optimized flow rate of Ar/O2 = 2/1 by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The prepared AZO/ZnO/indium-doped tin oxide memristor exhibits a bipolar switching behavior with Vset/Vreset of 1.4/−2.0 V. The results reflect an acceptable endurance of >500 cycles and retention of 104 s. The optimized device shows an improvement in the non-linearity of potentiation—2.31/depression—3.05 and has more than 25 cycles of stability. The transparency is checked using a UV-visible spectrophotometer showing 90% transparency in the visible region making the device suitable for applications in invisible electronics. Our results reflect that the proposed device can be used as a transparent electrode in making artificial synapses for neuromorphic applications.