A ballistic transport model for an artificial neuron

Abstract

We introduce a model for an artificial neuron which is based on ballistic transport in a multi-terminal device. Unlike standard configurations, the proposed design embeds the synaptic weights into the active region, thus significantly reducing the complexity of the input terminals. This is achieved by defining the basic elements of the ballistic artificial neuron as follows: the input values are set by the incoming wavefunctions amplitudes, while the weights correspond to the scattering matrix elements. Furthermore, the output value of the activation function of the artificial neuron is given by the transmission function. By tuning the gate voltage, the scattering potential and, consequently, the weights are changed so that the value of the transmission function gets closer to the target output, which is essential in the training process of artificial neural networks. Thus, we provide here the modus operandi of a ballistic artificial neuron.