Inorganic Synapses and the MANA Brain

We have set out to design and fabricate hardware-based advanced neural network systems toward the simulation of brain functions such as memory and learning.  This will involve exploration of material nanoarchitectonics using atom switches as inorganic synapses embedded within complex two-dimensional networks of electrically interconnected nanowires.  The experiments will employ nanostencil lithography (pioneered by Gimzewski) with atom switch fabrication (pioneered by Aono) in both UHV and electrochemical environments. Customized STM and non-contact AFM systems will enable emanations of the fundamental behaviors of these exciting materials.

Sponsored by WPI Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS), Japan

We have set out to examine the “pure” essence of intelligence as the ability of objects to learn the laws (correlations) of informative environments. An intelligent system has to be able to adopt correlations from any environment, with which it was put into interaction. Therefore, the state of an intelligent system must initially possess correlations of any complexity. This argumentation leads to unambiguous conclusion that in physical world only complex and/or critical states of nonlinear systems are intelligent.

We are currently investigating the influence of informative environment on critical states both theoretically and experimentally. Our approach is general and will lead to the unified model and deep understanding of the physical intelligence, and eventually to the design of physical intelligent systems and new paradigms in the area of Information processing. Besides tunable criticality of phase transitions (for simpler setups), we will also treat externally driven Self-Organized Critical (SOC) states of open dissipative nonlinear systems.

Our experimental implementations are being developed to study the intelligence of both tunable criticality and the SOC using multiple approaches. Our selected approaches are the four physical systems. (1) Correlated pump probe measurement of critical NiCu ferromagnetic system (with low Tc)   (2) Cellular automation of SOC with ferroelectric cellular lattice   (3). SOC using optical Rogue waves.  (4) Controllable critical behavior of an complex atomic switch array.

Sponsored by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, US

Biological nanomechanics is an emerging  field concerned with the mechanics of systems with components or motions on the scale of nanometers.  My research is aimed at the novel use of microfabrication and metrology for biological material characterization.  I have created a novel measurement method using microscopic interferometry that can determine the nanomechanical properties of hundreds-to-thousands of individual cells simultaneously.  This technique is also being applied to the characterization of soft biological films and membranes.

This work was initiated by a grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2005.

This research has the long term goal of programmed interrogation and functionality of single DNA/RNA molecules.  I am currently developing advanced AFM techniques to interrogate genomic material from a single human cell.

This work was initiated by a grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2007.