WSe2‐Based Multifunctional Optoelectronic Device for Processing Circuits (MOD‐PC)

Abstract This study reports a WSe 2 based two‐terminal, all‐in‐one semiconductor device, acronym as Multifunctional Optoelectronic Device for Processing Circuits (MOD‐PC) realizing analog, digital, and mixed‐signal processing blocks within a single cell and eliminating the dependency on Complementary Metal‐Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) counterparts for neuromorphic computing applications. 2D‐Material based photodetectors are fabricated exhibiting a high detectivity upto 2.5× 10 11 Jones and 0.92 A W –1 responsivity with scaled cross‐sectional area. Moreover, the opto‐electric signal processing circuits are experimentally demonstrated, e.g., Analog Optoelectronic‐Synapse (O‐Synapse), Digital Optoelectronic Logic (O‐Logic) [AND, OR logic] gates, and a novel Optoelectronic Digital‐to‐Analog Converter (O‐DAC) circuit. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to truly demonstrate analog, digital, and mixed‐signal circuit applications within a single two terminal based mechanically exfoliated optoelectronic homostructure device. Furthermore, all‐above functionalities are implemented within a single two terminal photodetector, even without modifying electrical schematic or no additional components requirement, thus overcoming area bottlenecks. The electro‐optic enabled 3‐bit O‐DAC circuit exhibits even upto 52× device count reduction (thus the area savings) and ≈13.2 × 10 6 × power efficiency in‐contrast to the CMOS/ BiCMOS/ GaN‐HEMT based counterparts. Moreover, proposed O‐Logic gates demonstrate 4× to 6× area and ⩾24× electrical energy savings as compared to conventional CMOS/ emerging technologies based designs.