Activating Silent Synapses in Sulfurized Indium Selenide for Neuromorphic Computing.

The transformation from silent to functional synapses is accompanied by the evolutionary process of human brain development and is essential to hardware implementation of the evolutionary artificial neural network but remains a challenge for mimicking silent to functional synapse activation. Here, we developed a simple approach to successfully realize activation of silent to functional synapses by controlled sulfurization of chemical vapor deposition-grown indium selenide crystals. The underlying mechanism is attributed to the migration of sulfur anions introduced by sulfurization.

Tunable Resistive Switching Enabled by Malleable Redox Reaction in the Nano-Vacuum Gap.

Neuromorphic computing has emerged as a highly promising alternative to conventional computing. The key to constructing a large-scale neural network in hardware for neuromorphic computing is to develop artificial neurons with leaky integrate-and-fire behavior and artificial synapses with synaptic plasticity using nanodevices. So far, these two basic computing elements have been built in separate devices using different materials and technologies, which poses a significant challenge to system design and manufacturing.

Ultrafast Nanoscale Phase-Change Memory Enabled By Single-Pulse Conditioning.

We describe how the crystallization kinetics of a suite of phase-change systems can be controlled by using a single-shot treatment via "initial crystallization" effects. Ultrarapid and highly stable phase-change structures (with excellent characteristics), viz. conventional and sub-10 nm sized cells (400 ps switching and 368 K for 10 year data retention), stackable cells (900 ps switching and 1 × 10 cycles for similar "switching-on" voltages), and multilevel configurations (800 ps switching and resistance-drift power-law coefficients <0.

Design of a Nanoscale, CMOS-Integrable, Thermal-Guiding Structure for Boolean-Logic and Neuromorphic Computation.

One of the requirements for achieving faster CMOS electronics is to mitigate the unacceptably large chip areas required to steer heat away from or, more recently, toward the critical nodes of state-of-the-art devices. Thermal-guiding (TG) structures can efficiently direct heat by "meta-materials" engineering; however, some key aspects of the behavior of these systems are not fully understood. Here, we demonstrate control of the thermal-diffusion properties of TG structures by using nanometer-scale, CMOS-integrable, graphene-on-silica stacked materials through finite-element-methods simulations.

Ultrafast phase-change logic device driven by melting processes.

The ultrahigh demand for faster computers is currently tackled by traditional methods such as size scaling (for increasing the number of devices), but this is rapidly becoming almost impossible, due to physical and lithographic limitations. To boost the speed of computers without increasing the number of logic devices, one of the most feasible solutions is to increase the number of operations performed by a device, which is largely impossible to achieve using current silicon-based logic devices. Multiple operations in phase-change-based logic devices have been achieved using crystallization; however, they can achieve mostly speeds of several hundreds of nanoseconds.

Enabling universal memory by overcoming the contradictory speed and stability nature of phase-change materials.

The quest for universal memory is driving the rapid development of memories with superior all-round capabilities in non-volatility, high speed, high endurance and low power. Phase-change materials are highly promising in this respect. However, their contradictory speed and stability properties present a key challenge towards this ambition.

Ultrafast switching in nanoscale phase-change random access memory with superlattice-like structures.

Phase-change random access memory cells with superlattice-like (SLL) GeTe/Sb(2)Te(3) were demonstrated to have excellent scaling performance in terms of switching speed and operating voltage. In this study, the correlations between the cell size, switching speed and operating voltage of the SLL cells were identified and investigated. We found that small SLL cells can achieve faster switching speed and lower operating voltage compared to the large SLL cells.

Perspectives for 10 terabits/in2 magnetic recording.

Magnetic recording technology has come a long way, since the introduction of the first hard disk drives (HDD) in 1956. The areal density has grown by a factor of 200 million times and the HDD has stayed as a main candidate for mass storage of information. In order to maintain its lead over other competing technologies, HDD industry continues to invent several technologies.

Effect of short annealing times on the magnetoelectronic properties of Co/Pd-based pseudo-spin-valves.

We investigated the effects of short annealing times on the magnetoelectronic properties of pseudo-spin-valves (PSV) with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy based on Co/Pd multilayers using a contact hot plate. In order to study the time scale at which the degradation of film properties occurs for possible application in perpendicular MgO-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ), the results were compared against our previous study of Co/Pd PSV based on vacuum annealing. With contact annealing for up to 90 s, no significant changes to the current-in-plane giant magnetoresistance (CIP-GMR), interlayer coupling, sheet resistance and layer coercivities were observed for up to 200 degrees C.

Magnetic properties and phase change features in Fe-doped Ge-Sb-Te.

The relationship between magnetic property and phase change features in Fe-doped Ge-Sb-Te has been studied. Fe-doped Ge-Sb-Te is a phase change magnetic material, which exhibits a fast phase change feature and different magnetic, optical and electrical properties between amorphous and crystalline states. However, the crystallization temperature increases and crystallization rate drops with an increase of Fe doping content.

Fast CGH computation using S-LUT on GPU.

In computation of full-parallax computer-generated hologram (CGH), balance between speed and memory usage is always the core of algorithm development. To solve the speed problem of coherent ray trace (CRT) algorithm and memory problem of look-up table (LUT) algorithm without sacrificing reconstructed object quality, we develop a novel algorithm with split look-up tables (S-LUT) and implement it on graphics processing unit (GPU). Our results show that S-LUT on GPU has the fastest speed among all the algorithms investigated in this paper, while it still maintaining low memory usage.

Deterministic beam fanning in Fe-doped stoichiometric lithium niobate crystals.

We investigated the beam-fanning effect in Fe-doped stoichiometric lithium niobate (Fe:SLN) crystals that were grown by the top-seeded solution growth method. Deterministic beam fanning (DBF) was measured in Z-cut Fe:SLN crystal for incident light propagating along the c+ and c- axes. The dependence of beam-fanning factors on incident power density was also studied.

Multispeed rewritable optical-recording method with an initialization-free phase-change disk.

A new method of multispeed rewritable optical recording is presented. An initialization-free phase-change optical disk is proposed as a candidate for multispeed rewritable optical recording. The simulated results of the initialization-free disk at different linear velocities show that the cooling rate increases from approximately 18.