[TuP3E] E. Physics, spintronics, and novel device concepts

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM JST(5:00 AM - 7:00 AM UTC)

[TuP3E-11 LN] Nanoconfinement-Enabled Reconfigurable Digital-to-Analog Gel Memristors

〇Xiangyu Zhang¹ (1. Southern University of Science and Technology (China))

In biological nervous systems, selective ion transport at confined interfaces underlies information encoding, storage, and spike generation. Inspired by this mechanism, we develop an ionic memristive device based on a phase-separated organogel confined in a nanoporous membrane, and investigate ion transport and dehydration-barrier regulation at gel heterointerfaces under nanoconfinement. By introducing hydrophilic polar phases into a hydrophobic matrix, heterogeneous ion-transport pathways are formed, where ion migration is jointly governed by solvation/desolvation and local energy barriers, leading to nonlinear conductance modulation. We find that polar-phase content, interfacial distribution, and nanopore confinement strongly determine device behavior. Low polar-phase content results in discrete pathways and high dehydration barriers, producing high-resistance or threshold-switching behavior. Increased hydrophilic-phase connectivity lowers the interfacial dehydration barrier and enables continuous conductance modulation with synaptic plasticity-like characteristics. This work reveals the link among interfacial structure, ionic dehydration, and electrical response, and provides a strategy for reconfigurable ionic neuromorphic devices.