Memory, or the ability to store information in a readily accessible way, is an essential operation in computers and human brains. A key difference is that while brain information processing involves performing computations directly on stored data, computers shuttle data back and forth between a memory unit and a central processing unit (CPU). This inefficient separation (the von Neumann bottleneck) contributes to the rising energy cost of computers.
Since the 1970s, researchers have been working on the concept of a memristor (memory resistor); an electronic component that can, like a synapse, both compute and store data. But Aleksandra Radenovic in the Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology (LBEN) in EPFL’s School of Engineering set her sight on something even more ambitious: a functional nanofluidic memristive device that relies on ions, rather than electrons and their oppositely charged…
