Improving Energy Efficiency & Computational Abilities of Computer Chips
Professor Zachary Robinson, along with students Andrew Rowley, Nicole Zhe, Alex Mesiti, and Emma Sargent published a collaborative paper about the neuromorphic computing material niobium dioxide. This material, when incorporated in a computer chip along with conventional transistor-based circuits, has the potential the improve the energy efficiency and computational abilities of computer chips by mimicking some of the electrical functions exhibited by nerve cells. Also, the images the students captured of the films are beautiful!
In this project, several summer-long research projects led by undergraduate students resulted in a paper focused on the formation of crystalline islands of NbO2. Nearly all of the data was collected and analyzed by students, including optical microscopy in Dr. Rich’s Lab in the Biology Department, and at the Raman Spectroscopy user-facility at the University of Rochester.
Students were funded by the Physics Department’s endowed Mancuso Summer Research Award, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program, and a grant funded by the National Science Foundation.