Effect of Adjacent Lateral Inhibition on Light and Electric-Stimulated Synaptic Transistors

Lateral inhibition is one of the basic principles of information processing in nervous system, which exists in various sensory systems from touch to vision. Here, synaptic transistors with lateral gates were fabricated on plastic substrate. Negative lateral gate voltage which can depress the channel current was used to emulate lateral inhibition. Influences of lateral inhibition on light-induced and electric-induced synaptic characteristics of synaptic transistors were investigated. Experiments demonstrated that in our devices, lateral inhibition can enhance electric-induced paired pulse facilitation (PPF) gain ratio, amplify current variation ratio in light-induced channel excitability and also modulate light-induced memory duration from long term memory to short term memory.