Conference Paper

A novel digitisation method for pulse switchable memristive chemical sensors

Abstract

Memristors, typically considered for their non-volatile resistive memory for high-density memory designs, have shown very good sensitivity to various chemicals. As such, these devices can also be fabricated as chemical sensors with intrinsic memory. When fabricated for sensing chemicals, the switching state of the devices, depending on the amount of the applied bias voltage/current, also changes in the presence of the chemicals, compared to when the chemicals are not present. We have observed that this property can be combined with the device’s intrinsic memory to directly digitise sensed information. To this end, in this paper, we propose an innovative technique to directly digitise the sensor readings, e.g. gas concentrations, simply by pulsing the devices to exploit the memory behaviour in the presence of a chemical to change the state of the device. Essentially, we are relying on the sensors to tell us when a certain property of a chemical is sensed by switching its state while this information is digitised. This method obviates the need to use separate Analogue-to-Digital converters (ADC), thereby significantly simplifying the sensor architecture in terms of power consumption and circuit complexity. Additionally, owing to the observed high non-linearity of the fabricated devices, this digitisation method is also highly nonlinear, which can provide an added layer of security in the sensed information.

Authors

Devi, Meenakshi
Khandelwal, Saurabh
Vidis, Marek
Plecenik, Tomas
Jabir, Abusaleh

Oxford Brookes departments

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Dates

Year of publication: [in press]
Date of RADAR deposit: 2024-07-19

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