Understanding the degeneration of neurons from NbO_x-based threshold device by an unhappy environment

The neuronal degeneration severely disrupts the stability of neuromorphic systems. In this letter, it was experimentally demonstrated that the NbO _x device degradation was induced by an unhappy environment, thus the leaky integration-and-fire (LIF) threshold neurons performed the significantly distinguishable frequency characteristics like the degeneration of biological neurons. Furthermore, the mechanism revealed that the threshold voltage increase was induced by broadening the band gap and improving the Schottky barrier height, originating from the reduction of oxygen vacancies. This work realized and solidly understood the neuronal degeneration, benefiting to design feasible strategies for high stability neuromorphic systems.