Over the past several decades, advancements in microelectronics have enabled our society to enter the digital age, which is driven by information and communication technologies. Today, we likely depend on computer technology more than we depend on fossil fuels. While relying on computers is not inherently negative, our dependence on these technologies requires us to continuously improve the performance of electronic devices to meet the demands of our developing digital society.
In the near future, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence-based algorithms, we will expect mobile and wearable devices to interact with human-friendly inputs such as images, sounds, and natural language. These devices will also need to make real-time decisions based on these complex inputs. Currently, performance at this level is only possible to some extent on large, stationary, and dedicated systems. However, we need these technologies on mobile, compact platforms with minimal power consumption. To achieve this, we need revolutionary new approaches to hardware architectures and materials for future electronics.
This is where the POL_2D_PHYSICS project aims to provide a solution. In our project, we are addressing a class of functional dielectrics for electronic applications that has largely been overlooked by the scientific community and major, innovation-leading electronic industries. Our goal is to establish two-dimensional phyllosilicates, also known as sheet silicate clays, as high-performance dielectrics for future electronic applications. This material class shows great promise, particularly in neuromorphic computing architectures, which are better suited for complex AI-based applications. Some sheet silicate minerals have been shown to exhibit long-range field ordering in the bulk. Translating these properties to 2D electronic devices will enable new computing in memory and self-reconfigurable architectures. These advanced electronic concepts differ greatly from current stationary hardware and will allow future electronics to physically mimic features that only our brains can perform today. Future chips will be non-binary, stochastic, and reconfigurable at the hardware level. They will be capable of physical changes and able to reconfigure their interconnects and repurpose their functions in a Darwinian manner by competing for use. Our team hopes that 2D phyllosilicates and this project will lay the groundwork for future advancements in electronics.
