  Molecule-based devices are envisioned to complement silicon devices by
providing new functions or already existing functions at a simpler process
level and at a lower cost by virtue of their self-organization capabilities,
moreover, they are not bound to von Neuman architecture and this may open the
way to other architectural paradigms. Here we demonstrate a device made of
conjugated molecules and metal nanoparticles (NPs) which behaves as a spiking
synapse suitable for integration in neural network architectures. We
demonstrate that this device exhibits the main behavior of a biological
synapse. These results open the way to rate coding utilization of the NOMFET in
perceptron and Hopfield networks. We can also envision the NOMFET as a building
block of neuroelectronics for interfacing neurons or neuronal logic devices
made from patterned neuronal cultures with solid-state devices and circuits.
