Wearable Synaptic Transistors

Both wearable and neuromorphic applications have been on the rise this decade. However, a classical evolutionary approach was to take existing solutions and re-shape them into a wearable form factor. In contrast, graphene has shown a revolutionary advantage to wearables as well as neuromorphic devices. This work shows a unique solution that allows the skin as the synaptic bio-input with the vision to create advanced neuromorphic sensing and self-aware stand-alone “smart” bioelectronic systems. <br/>Leveraging our recent concept of graphene-based soft, flexible, and power-efficient neuromorphic transistors (BLASTs), we extended them into skinBLASTs, arranging the graphene-Nafion structure into the wearable and skin-conformal format. The performance of such devices is astonishing: the porcine-based network performs close to ideal, with a more significant performance degradation seen in the human-based network. These neuromorphic bioelectronic tattoos have the potential for developing self-aware and stand-alone smart wearables, crucial for understanding and improving overall human performance.<br/>Finally, we show that interbody neuromorphic communication is possible by employing the flexible neuromorphic tattoos that are controlled through the skin, opening unique routes for advanced in-body neuromorphic computing systems.