ABSTRACT
Owning to the outstanding physical and chemical capabilities, electrostatic interaction, tunability and confined charge-trapping mechanisms, 2D materials, and their heterostructured films demonstrated high capability for synaptic applications. Most of the previous research works focused on the functionalities of ultra-thin 2D materials to emulate the biological synaptic properties. The synaptic behavior and its mechanisms are mostly based on the resistive switching and charge trapping phenomena in ultra-thin 2D films. Although the capabilities of 2D materials for emulation of synaptic plasticity are proven in several devices, the development of integrated synaptic systems with capability of neuromorphic computation is still in fancy stage. Besides the development of novel artificial synapses based on 2D materials, it is highly required to develop novel neuromorphic system in which the synaptic weights are controlled in interconnected network of artificial synapses to emulate the neuromorphic performance of the human brain. On the other hand, fabrication of interconnected synaptic systems is also highly dependent on the advance fabrication techniques. Taking into account that the main current fabrication challenge is the large-scale growth of advanced ultra-thin 2D materials with precise controllability over their properties, the fabrication techniques must be improved to ensure uniform integration of the synaptic devices. Furthermore, the reliability, energy-efficiency and long-term stability of the 2D-based artificial synapses and their networks are still a challenging target. Thus, further explorations are necessary to be carried out to meet the requirements of high performance artificial synapses in neuromorphic engineering.
