IBM Research in Zurich has created the world’s first artificial nanoscale stochastic phase-change neurons. IBM has already created a population of 500 of these artificial neurons and used them to process a signal in a brain-like (neuromorphic) way.

This breakthrough is particularly notable because the phase-change neurons are fashioned out of well-understood materials that can scale down to a few nanometres, and because they are capable of firing at high speed but with low energy requirements. They are also stochastic—i.e. they always produce slightly different, random results, like biological neurons—which is very important as well.

Enough fluff—let’s talk about how these phase-change neurons are actually constructed. At this point, it might help if you look at the first diagram in the gallery.