A Reconfigurable Bipolar Image Sensor for High-Efficiency Dynamic Vision Recognition

Nano Lett. 2024 May 15;24(19):5862-5869. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c01190. Epub 2024 May 6.

Abstract

Dynamic vision perception and processing (DVPP) is in high demand by booming edge artificial intelligence. However, existing imaging systems suffer from low efficiency or low compatibility with advanced machine vision techniques. Here, we propose a reconfigurable bipolar image sensor (RBIS) for in-sensor DVPP based on a two-dimensional WSe2/GeSe heterostructure device. Owing to the gate-tunable and reversible built-in electric field, its photoresponse shows bipolarity as being positive or negative. High-efficiency DVPP incorporating front-end RBIS and back-end CNN is then demonstrated. It shows a high recognition accuracy of over 94.9% on the derived DVS128 data set and requires much fewer neural network parameters than that without RBIS. Moreover, we demonstrate an optimized device with a vertically stacked structure and a stable nonvolatile bipolarity, which enables more efficient DVPP hardware. Our work demonstrates the potential of fabricating DVPP devices with a simple structure, high efficiency, and outputs compatible with advanced algorithms.

Keywords: convolutional neural networks; dynamic vision perception and processing; edge artificial intelligence; reconfigurable bipolar image sensor; two-dimensional heterostructures.