A Natural Silk Fibroin Protein‐Based Transparent Bio‐Memristor

Abstract

The recent discovery of nanoelectronics memristor devices has opened up a new wave of enthusiasm and optimism in revolutionizing electronic circuit design, marking the beginning of new era for the advancement of neuromorphic, high‐density logic and memory applications. Here a highly non‐linear dynamic response of a bio‐memristor is demonstrated using natural silk cocoon fibroin protein of silkworm, Bombyx mori. A film that is transparent across most of the visible spectrum is obtained with the electronic‐grade silk fibroin aqueous solution of ca. 2% (wt/v). Bipolar memristive switching is demonstrated; the switching mechanism is confirmed to be the filamentary switching as observed by probing local conduction behavior at nanoscale using scanning tunneling microscopy. The memristive transition is elucidated by a physical model based on the carrier trapping or detrapping in silk fibroin films and this appears to be due to oxidation and reduction procedures, as evidenced from cyclic voltammetry measurements. Hence, silk fibroin protein could be used as a biomaterial for bio‐memristor devices for applications in advanced bio‐inspired very large scale integration circuit design as well as in biologically inspired synapse links for energy‐efficient neuromorphic computing.

The Memristive Properties of a Single VO2 Nanowire with Switching Controlled by Self‐Heating

“…[ 2 ] Since memristors can achieve both high integration density and low switching power consumption thanks to high scalability down to only a few nanometers, they have been one of the most attractive devices for next-generation memory technology. [ 3 ] Various materials with switchable and retainable resistance have been used to realize the memristor memory, including proteins, [ 4,5 ] TiO 2 , [ 6 ] polyaniline, [ 7 ] Si, [ 8 ] MgO, [ 9,10 ] and VO 2 . [11][12][13][14] VO 2 is one of the most notable materials owing to its fast response time and large range of accessible resistance values through a metal-to-insulator transition (MIT).…”

Memristors in the electrical network ofAloe veraL.

“…Johnsen et al 22 found that the sweat ducts in the skin are memristors. Hota et al 23 create transparent memristors from natural regenerated silk fibroin protein obtained from cocoons of Bombyx mori silkworm. We should expect the finding of bio-memristors in many different biological systems in the near future.…”

Silk Fibroin for Flexible Electronic Devices

“…[ 36,38,39,64,67 ] Moreover, the optical transparency and facile solution-based processability of silk fi broin facilitate its integration with functional materials, providing convenience to the micro-/nanofabrication processes of fl exible thin-fi lm or transparent electronic devices. [ 22,29,78 ] Meanwhile, the degradation rate of silk-fi broin fi lms can be confi gured from minutes to years, thus enabling the emergence of new techniques, particularly transient electronics, which can dissolve in a programmable way for …”