Local active memristive oscillator enables controllable complex behaviours and frequency domain extraction

Abstract Physical nonlinearities near the Mott transition exhibit substantial potential for neuromorphic computing. The complex computational behaviour stems from their intrinsic local active characteristics. Most studies focus on decay dynamics or regular oscillations, treating Mott devices primarily as simple threshold elements. Challenges remain in connecting measurable material properties to more complex device dynamics and their control methods through a unified theoretical model. Here, we develop a thermodynamic compact model for VO2 devices based on electrical measurements and the local active principle. Utilizing the nonlinearities near the Mott transition, we propose an injection-based control method to regulate behaviours of nonlinear oscillators, such as frequency division, stochastic oscillations, and frequency locking. Finally, a single device operating at the edge of chaos demonstrates exceptional capability of extracting information in frequency domain within a physical computing framework, achieving performance equivalent to a two-layers convolutional neural network on the same task. This work facilitates a paradigm shift from traditional local passive devices to local active devices, bridging the physical nonlinearities, circuit dynamics and computational theory to advance dynamic neuromorphic computing.