For all of the unparalleled, parallel-processing, still-indistinguishable-from-magic wizardry packed into the three pounds of the adult human brain, it obeys the same rule as the other living tissue it controls: Oxygen is a must.
So it was with a touch of irony that Evgeny Tsymbal offered his explanation for a technological wonder -- movable, data-covered walls mere atoms wide -- that may eventually help computers behave more like a brain.
"There was unambiguous evidence that oxygen vacancies are responsible for this," said Tsymbal, George Holmes University Professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In partnership with colleagues in China and Singapore, Tsymbal and a few Husker alumni have demonstrated how to construct, control and explain the oxygen-deprived walls of a nanoscopically thin material suited to next-gen electronics.
Unlike most digital data-writing and -reading techniques, which speak only the binary of 1s and 0s, these walls can talk in several electronic dialects that could allow the devices housing them to store even more data. Like synapses in the brain, the passage of electrical spikes sent via the walls can depend on which signals have passed through before, lending them an adaptability and energy-efficiency more akin to human memory. And much as brains maintain memories even when their users sleep, the walls can retain their data states even if their devices turn off -- a precursor to electronics that power back on with the speed and simplicity of a light.
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