Stochastic transition in synchronized spiking nanooscillators

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Sep 19;120(38):e2303765120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2303765120. Epub 2023 Sep 11.

Abstract

This work reports that synchronization of Mott material-based nanoscale coupled spiking oscillators can be drastically different from that in conventional harmonic oscillators. We investigated the synchronization of spiking nanooscillators mediated by thermal interactions due to the close physical proximity of the devices. Controlling the driving voltage enables in-phase 1:1 and 2:1 integer synchronization modes between neighboring oscillators. Transition between these two integer modes occurs through an unusual stochastic synchronization regime instead of the loss of spiking coherence. In the stochastic synchronization regime, random length spiking sequences belonging to the 1:1 and 2:1 integer modes are intermixed. The occurrence of this stochasticity is an important factor that must be taken into account in the design of large-scale spiking networks for hardware-level implementation of novel computational paradigms such as neuromorphic and stochastic computing.

Keywords: spiking oscillators; stochastic transition; synchronization evolution; thermal coupling; time domain phase coexistence.