Spiking Neurons Demystified by a Dynamical Model of Mott Memristors

L. Van Brandt, N. Bidoul, T. Ratier, J.-C. Delvenne, D. Flandre (Univ. Catholique de Louvain, Belgium)

Bio-inspired sensory neurons implemented with phase-change materials like Vanadium dioxide (VO2)are able to encode the perceived information into spikes in the time domain. VO2 memristors exhibiting reversible Metal-Insulator Transitions (MIT) have been microfabricated. In circuit configuration, they are capable of producing continuous voltage spikes on an output capacitor. Such experimentally evidenced spiking or oscillating behaviour still awaits compact modeling and quantitative predictions from the mathematical theory of nonlinear dynamical systems.