The Journal of Physics D in the UK has published a study utilizing honey to create memristors—a component similar to transistors that can not only process but also store data within computer chips.
Associate Professor Feng Zhao from the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University (WSU), who is also a co-author of the study, stated: “This is a very small device with a simple structure, yet it functions very similarly to human neurons.”
Honey could be an excellent solution for developing environmentally friendly components for computer chips designed to mimic the neurons found in the human brain – (Photo: TECHXPLORE)
Mr. Zhao and Brandon Sueoka, the lead author of this study and a graduate student from WSU, created memristors by processing honey into solid form and sandwiching it between two metal electrodes, resulting in a structure resembling human neurons.
The WSU engineers developed honey-based memory chips at a microscopic scale, making them the size of a human hair.
The research team led by Mr. Zhao plans to scale these up to the nanoscale, approximately 1/1,000 the width of a human hair. They also aim to combine millions or even billions of honey nanofibers to form a complete polymorphic neural computing system.
The human brain contains over 100 billion neurons with more than 1,000 trillion synapses connecting them. Each neuron can process and store data, making the brain significantly more efficient than a traditional computer.
Several companies, including Intel and IBM, have released polymorphic neural chips with the equivalent of over 100 million “neurons” per chip, but this number is still far from the actual count in the brain.
“Honey is not easily damaged. It has a very low moisture content, so bacteria cannot survive in it. This means that these computer chips will be very stable and reliable for a long time,” Mr. Zhao noted.
The honey-based memory chips developed at WSU can withstand lower temperatures, as the neural systems they generate do not heat up like traditional computers.
Mr. Zhao added: “When we want to dispose of devices using honey-based computer chips, we can easily dissolve them in water. Due to these special properties, honey is very useful for creating biological neural systems that can regenerate and biodegrade.”
