We are edging closer to computers that work like the human brain

For years scientists have been working to try and develop technology based on memory resistors (memristors for short), this technology promises computers that never need to boot up and work more like the human brain – like neurons, they can store information and perform logic operations. Now, the scientists at Northwestern University have made a new breakthrough that may make computers that work like a brain a possibility!

Memory resistors are interesting for more than their potential to make brain-like computers… Unlike a flash memory – they are very fast. Unlike RAM – they remember their state, whatever information they held even if they lose power! Memristors also need less energy to operate, rarely ever crash and are immune to radiation. The only trouble is that they are two-terminal electronic devices, which means they are only tunable through changes in the voltage applied externally.

The team at Northwestern University has managed to transform memristors from two-terminal to three-terminal electronic devices, allowing them to be used in more complicated electronic circuits and systems. The normal memory resistor setup as two-terminal devices allows only limited control over how electrical current flows through the system, but the third electrode that the Northwestern researchers used can now act as a gate, finely controlling the resistance.

They have managed to achieve this by using a nanomaterial semiconductor called molybdenum disulfide, which has “grains” of atoms arranged in a different direction to the memory resistors. A grain boundary sits between the molybdenum disulfide sheet and the metal electrode, acting as a kind of interface for the atoms.

Co-author, Mark Hersam said “These grain boundaries influence the flow of current, so they can serve as a means of tuning resistance.”

When a large electric field is applied on the memristor, which causes a change in the resistance, the grain boundary will move. And that makes a new level of function that could lead to brain-like computers possible.

Read a paper describing the research in the journal Nature Nanotechnology…

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Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town