High-speed ionic synaptic memory based on two-dimensional titanium carbide MXene

Abstract

Synaptic devices with linear high-speed switching can accelerate learning in artificial neural networks (ANNs) embodied in hardware. Conventional resistive memories however suffer from high write noise and asymmetric conductance tuning, preventing parallel programming of ANN arrays as needed to surpass conventional computing efficiency. Electrochemical random-access memories (ECRAMs), where resistive switching occurs by ion insertion into a redox-active channel address these challenges due to their linear switching and low noise. ECRAMs using two-dimensional (2D) materials and metal oxides suffer from slow ion kinetics, whereas organic ECRAMs enable high-speed operation but face significant challenges towards on-chip integration due to poor temperature stability of polymers. Here, we demonstrate ECRAMs using 2D titanium carbide (Ti3C2Tx) MXene that combines the high speed of organics and the integration compatibility of inorganic materials in a single high-performance device. Our ECRAMs combine the speed, linearity, write noise, switching energy and endurance metrics essential for parallel acceleration of ANNs, and importantly, they are stable after heat treatment needed for back-end-of-line integration with Si electronics. The high speed and performance of these ECRAMs introduces MXenes, a large family of 2D carbides and nitrides with more than 30 compositions synthesized to date, as very promising candidates for devices operating at the nexus of electrochemistry and electronics.