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Memsensing by surface ion migration within Debye length
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DOI：10.1038/s41563-025-02312-9.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Integration between electronics and biology is often facilitated by iontronics, where ion migration in aqueous media governs sensing and memory. However, the Debye screening effect limits electric fields to the Debye length, the distance over which mobile ions screen electrostatic interactions, necessitating external voltages that constrain the operation speed and device design. Here we report a high-speed in-memory sensor based on vanadium dioxide (VO2) that operates without an external voltage by leveraging built-in electric fields within the Debye length. When VO2 contacts a low-work-function metal (for example, indium) in a salt solution, electrochemical reactions generate indium ions that migrate into the VO2 surface under the native electric field, inducing a surface insulator-to-metal phase transition of VO2. The VO2 conductance increase rate reflects the salt concentration, enabling in-memory sensing, or memsensing of the solution. The memsensor mimics Caenorhabditis elegans chemosensory plasticity to guide a miniature boat for adaptive chemotaxis, illustrating low-power aquatic neurorobotics with fewer memory units. The electrostatic interactions in aqueous ionic media are screened by mobile charge carriers, limiting device design and operation speed. Here the built-in electric field is leveraged to dope ions into vanadium dioxide, triggering a surface insulator-to-metal transition, further enabling high-speed in-memory sensing in aqueous solutions.
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