Synaptic memristors based on flexible organic pentacene thin films by the thermal evaporation method for neuromorphic computing

As the development of neuromorphic computing, it is meaningful to explore the synaptic memristors based on organic materials owing to their advantages in low cost, good mechanical flexibility and strong biocompatibility. In this work, organic pentacene thin films have been deposited on different substrates by the thermal evaporation method. The prepared thin films on SiO2/Si substrates demonstrate the co-existence of digital and analog resistive switching (RS) behaviors as well as a series of synaptic plasticity. To characterize the flexibility of the organic thin films, lateral memristors have been fabricated on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates and demonstrate comparable RS behaviors when the bending radius is decreased to 1.26 cm or after 1000 bending. Furthermore, vertical memristors with Pt/pentacene/indium tin oxide (ITO) structure have been constructed when the organic thin films are deposited on ITO/PET substrates, exhibiting bipolar RS behaviors with low SET voltage of 0.65 V. The vertical synaptic memristors can be used to simulate the “learning-forgetting” experience of human brain. More importantly, an artificial neural network (ANN) can be simulated based on the vertical synaptic memristors, demonstrating 93.8 % recognition accuracy for hand-written digit image. This study suggests potential applications of the organic pentacene thin films for neuromorphic computing.