Celestial neuromorphics based on ferroelectric gallium oxide

ABSTRACT Efficient recognition of celestial activities demands hardware that can operate with high efficiency and robustness in radiation-rich space environments. Ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) semiconductors are well-suited for such environments, but conventional UWBG transistors are not inherently compatible with advanced computing functions. To address this limitation, here, we report a κ-phase gallium oxide (κ-Ga2O3) based in-sensor reservoir computing system (κ-ISRC), which incorporates deep ultraviolet sensing, memory, and neuromorphic computation for celestial activity recognition. A ferroelectric high-electron-mobility transistor is fabricated by exploiting polarization switching of κ-Ga2O3 through atomic sliding mechanisms. The Al2O3/κ-Ga2O3 dielectric/ferroelectric gate stack provides negative-capacitance effect, supporting configurable memory operations. Furthermore, the device can maintain its performance over a wide temperature range (from −270 to 210°C) and under ion irradiation with an average flux of 1×104 cm−2 s−1. Leveraging these device features, the celestial neuromorphic system achieves up to 95% classification accuracies across diverse astrophysical events, including solar flares, cosmic-ray bursts, and pulsar emissions. This work establishes UWBG ferroelectric semiconductors as a multifunctional platform for energy-efficient in-sensor neuromorphic electronics for aerospace and deep-space applications.