Axon-like active signal transmission

Timothy D. Brown, Alan Zhang, Frederick U. Nitta, Elliot D. Grant, Jenny L. Chong, Jacklyn Zhu, Sritharini Radhakrishnan, Mahnaz Islam, Elliot J. Fuller, A. Alec Talin, Patrick J. Shamberger, Eric Pop, R. Stanley Williams and Suhas Kumar ()
Additional contact information
Timothy D. Brown: Sandia National Laboratories
Alan Zhang: Sandia National Laboratories
Frederick U. Nitta: Sandia National Laboratories
Elliot D. Grant: Sandia National Laboratories
Jenny L. Chong: Texas A&M University
Jacklyn Zhu: Sandia National Laboratories
Sritharini Radhakrishnan: Sandia National Laboratories
Mahnaz Islam: Sandia National Laboratories
Elliot J. Fuller: Sandia National Laboratories
A. Alec Talin: Sandia National Laboratories
Patrick J. Shamberger: Texas A&M University
Eric Pop: Stanford University
R. Stanley Williams: Sandia National Laboratories
Suhas Kumar: Sandia National Laboratories

Nature, 2024, vol. 633, issue 8031, 804-810

Abstract: Abstract Any electrical signal propagating in a metallic conductor loses amplitude due to the natural resistance of the metal. Compensating for such losses presently requires repeatedly breaking the conductor and interposing amplifiers that consume and regenerate the signal. This century-old primitive severely constrains the design and performance of modern interconnect-dense chips1. Here we present a fundamentally different primitive based on semi-stable edge of chaos (EOC)2,3, a long-theorized but experimentally elusive regime that underlies active (self-amplifying) transmission in biological axons4,5. By electrically accessing the spin crossover in LaCoO3, we isolate semi-stable EOC, characterized by small-signal negative resistance and amplification of perturbations6,7. In a metallic line atop a medium biased at EOC, a signal input at one end exits the other end amplified, without passing through a separate amplifying component. While superficially resembling superconductivity, active transmission offers controllably amplified time-varying small-signal propagation at normal temperature and pressure, but requires an electrically energized EOC medium. Operando thermal mapping reveals the mechanism of amplification—bias energy of the EOC medium, instead of fully dissipating as heat, is partly used to amplify signals in the metallic line, thereby enabling spatially continuous active transmission, which could transform the design and performance of complex electronic chips.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07921-z

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