Nanoscale All-Oxide-Heterostructured Bio-inspired Optoresponsive Nociceptor

Abstract Retina nociceptor, as a key sensory receptor, not only enables the transport of warning signals to the human central nervous system upon its exposure to noxious stimuli, but also triggers the motor response that minimizes potential sensitization. In this study, the capability of two-dimensional all-oxide-heterostructured artificial nociceptor as a single device with tunable properties was confirmed. Newly designed nociceptors utilize ultra-thin sub-stoichiometric TiO 2 –Ga 2 O 3 heterostructures, where the thermally annealed Ga 2 O 3 films play the role of charge transfer controlling component. It is discovered that the phase transformation in Ga 2 O 3 is accompanied by substantial jump in conductivity, induced by thermally assisted internal redox reaction of Ga 2 O 3 nanostructure during annealing. It is also experimentally confirmed that the charge transfer in all-oxide heterostructures can be tuned and controlled by the heterointerfaces manipulation. Results demonstrate that the engineering of heterointerfaces of two-dimensional (2D) films enables the fabrication of either high-sensitive TiO 2 –Ga 2 O 3 (Ar) or high-threshold TiO 2 –Ga 2 O 3 (N 2 ) nociceptors. The hypersensitive nociceptor mimics the functionalities of corneal nociceptors of human eye, whereas the delayed reaction of nociceptor is similar to high-threshold nociceptive characteristics of human sensory system. The long-term stability of 2D nociceptors demonstrates the capability of heterointerfaces engineering for effective control of charge transfer at 2D heterostructured devices.