Cognitive Tactile Perceptual System by Integrating Oxide Neuromorphic Transistor With Triboelectric Nanogenerator

The tactile perceptual system plays a significant role in human physiological activities. Mimicking the perceptual activities on hardware devices will greatly advance the developments of human-computer interfacing. Here, an artificial tactile perceptual system is proposed by integrating solution processed chitosan gated indium-tin-oxide (ITO) neuromorphic transistor and triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). The transistor exhibits good electrical performance. The TENGs were fabricated on flexible substrates using polydimethylsiloxane polytetrafluoroethylene (PDMS-PTFE) film with high electronegativity as a friction layer. The system demonstrates typical synaptic responses upon pressures. It also demonstrates a quick response time of ~100 ms and good sensitivity (SE) of ~14 nA/N. Since pressures loaded on TENG can carry information, the system demonstrates signal encryption and decoding functions. In addition, it can monitor finger bending activities in real time. The system demonstrates potential in wearable electronics, neural prosthetics, and intelligent human-machine interfacing.