NACK - Novel Two-dimensional (2D) Materials and Devices for Biomimetic Sensing and Computing

2021.01.28 Saptarshi Das, Pennsylvania State University
Table of contents available.

This presentation is made available by the The Nanotechnology Applications and Career Knowledge (NACK).

Many animals outsmart humans in sensory skills. In fact, animals can do much more than just see, smell, touch, taste, and hear. For example, octopuses possess polarized vision, bats use ultrasound to echolocate, hyper touch sensitive spiders can trace the origin of micro-vibrations and sharks can detect electric fields as weak as nanovolts per centimeter. The extraordinary sensing ability of these animals are mostly attributed to the evolutionary success of their respective and specialized sensory organs. However, less emphasis is laid on the connectivity, association, and organization of neurons inside the brainstem of these animals. What is even more humbling is the fact that the tiny brains of these animals allocate very limited neural resources in terms of area and energy for executing these high-level computations.

Drawing inspiration from natural intelligent sensor design, we have developed a number of solid-state biomimetic devices that provide unprecedented energy and area benefits for sensory computations. In particular, we have mimicked auditory information processing in barn owl (Nature Communications, 10, 3450, 2019), collision avoidance by locust (Nature Electronics, 2020), and subthreshold signal detection by paddlefish and cricket using stochastic resonance (Nature Communications, 2020). We have also mimicked probabilistic computing in animal brains using low-power Gaussian synapses (Nature Communications, 10, 4199, 2019) and realized a biomimetic device that can emulate neurotransmitter release in chemical synapses (ACS Nano, 11, 3, 2017). We use novel nano materials, nano devices, and in-memory computing architectures to demonstrate this new paradigm of sensing and computing. Our goal is to deploy theses low-power and smart biomimetic devices at remote, inaccessible, and resource constrained locations.

Table of Contents:
00:00 Novel Two-dimensional Materials and Devices for Biomimetic Sensing and Computing
00:32 This webinar is hosted by
01:04 Hosts and Presenters:
03:13 The 2D Revolution
05:48 Why 2D ?
06:56 More Transistors  Better Computing
07:30 Power: 10MW power Size: Football field (109 cm3)
07:59 Power: 10MW power Size: Football field (109 cm3)
08:15 Biological Computing
08:54 Biological Computing – non Von Neumann
09:53 Biomimetic Computing
12:01 Sound localization in complete darkness with a precision of 1-30
13:48 Barn Owl: Superior Audio Sensor
14:22 Barn Owl: Superior Audio Sensor
15:14 Coincidence Detector and Map
16:20 Biomimetic Navigational Sensor Supersedes Barn Owl
17:06 Locust: Collision Detector
18:33 LGMD Neuron Ultra-low energy
19:54 LGMD Neuron Ultra-low energy
20:42 Untitled: Slide 20
21:00 Untitled: Slide 21
21:17 Visual Stimulus Mimicking Approaching Object
21:38 Collision Detection
22:35 Collision Detection
22:57 Collision Detection
23:50 Questions?
29:28 Growth and fabrication of 2D Nanodevices
31:16 Stochastic Resonance Constructive Role of Noise in Sensory Computation
31:28 Noise is Nuisance
31:35 Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
32:11 Conventional Solid-State Sensors
33:35 Locate Prey
36:31 Escape from Predator
36:42 Stochastic Resonance is everywhere
37:09 What is Stochastic Resonance
37:49 Stochastic Resonance in MoS2 Photodetector
38:13 Limit of MoS2 Photodetector
38:47 Stochastic Resonance in MoS2 Photodetector
39:09 Stochastic Resonance in MoS2 Photodetector
39:31 Stochastic Resonance in MoS2 Photodetector
39:55 Stochastic Resonance in MoS2 Photodetector
40:20 SNR and Energy Benefits
41:06 Brain Inspired Computing and Sensing
41:31 Thank You
41:57 Questions?