I.B.M. Research Points to Circuits That Mimic the Brain’s Design

A nanofluidic circuit would operate by passing ionic fluid, shown in green, through conduits fabricated on top of a planar oxide surface, shown in orange.

I.B.M. scientists said Thursday that they had developed a fluidic electronic system that mimics the circuits in the human brain and potentially offers a new direction for ultra-low-power microelectronics and artificial intelligence.
A group of researchers at the company’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., reported in the journal Science that they had pioneered a novel mechanism for transforming an insulating material into a metallic conductor by placing it in contact with a charged fluid. In contrast to conventional semiconductors, which use electric currents to switch materials between insulating and conducting states, the new method uses what the researchers describe as “ionic currents” — mobile charged atoms rather than electrons — as a switching mechanism.

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