CogniFiber: Harnessing Biocompatible and Biodegradable 1D Collagen Nanofibers for Sustainable Non-volatile Memory and Synaptic Learning Applications.

In the present work, resistive switching (RS) devices are fabricated using naturally abundant, nontoxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable biomaterials. For this purpose, one-dimensional (1D) chitosan nanofibers (NFs), collagen NFs, and chitosan-collagen NFs are synthesized by using an electrospinning technique. Among different NFs, the collagen NFs-based device shows promising RS characteristics. In particular, the optimized Ag/Collagen NFs/FTO RS device shows a voltage-tunable analog memory behavior and good non-volatile memory properties. Moreover, it can also mimic various biological synaptic learning properties and can be used for pattern classification applications with the help of the Spiking Neural Network (SNN). The time series analysis technique is employed to model and predict the switching variations of the RS device. Moreover, the collagen NFs have shown good cytotoxicity and anticancer properties, suggesting excellent biocompatibility as a switching layer. The biocompatibility of collagen NFs is explored with the help of NRK-52E (rat kidney normal cell line) and MCF-7 (cancer cell line). Additionally, the biodegradability of the device is evaluated through a physical transient test. This work provides a vital step towards developing a biocompatible and biodegradable switching material for sustainable non-volatile memory and neuromorphic computing applications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.