A material that can 'remember' like the brain has been discovered
0A material that can 'remember' like the brain has been discovered
Scientists have discovered the first physical material capable of "remembering" the entire history of physical stimuli, similar to a brain.
The team at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland stumbled upon a remarkable feature while investigating the transitions of vanadium dioxide (VO2), a compound used in electronics.
According to the information in GOLAHURA, PhD student Mohammed Samizade Niko was trying to understand how long it takes for the compound to transition from one state to another.
However, Niko soon realized that when an electric current was applied, something had never been seen before.
"The current moved through the material and followed a path where it exited on the other side," said Samizade Niko.
After applying a second electric current during the experiment, the researcher observed that the time it took for the material's state to change was directly related to its history.
REMEMBER AND FORESEE
"Component VO2 'remembers' the first phase transition and predicts the next," said Professor Elison Matioli, who oversaw the research.
The discovery could have important implications for advances in electronic devices that perform memory-based computations.
The researchers argue that the memory effect is an inherent property of the material itself, increasing the capacity and speed of electronic devices, ultimately enabling them to be miniaturized.
A study detailing the research has been published in the scientific journal Nature Electronics.