A bio-inspired image processor for edge detection with single-electron circuits

Single-electron circuits can be considered as highly functional units both in digital and analog computational systems. On the other hand, electrical circuits that are designed by mimicking computational structures in living organisms - neuromorphic circuits, would provide an insight to develop even more efficient processors. Neuromorphic systems have extensively been studied only for CMOS devices, and several neuromorphic circuits have been designed and fabricated. In this work, as an example toward developing nano-electronic neuromorphic architectures, we propose a possible image-processing structure for single-electron circuits. Among early visual processing, edge detection is a primary function in the vertebrate retina. We thus propose a single-electron circuit performing edge detection, and demonstrate the basic operations.