NSF Convergence Accelerator Track M: Enabling novel photonic neuromorphic devices through bridging DNA-programmable assembly and nanofabrication

Increasing demand for data processing cannot be satisfied by current technologies due to the incompatibility between new brain-inspired information-processing algorithms, hardware operating on traditional principles, and prohibitive energy requirements. The project aims to address this impasse. Specifically, it aims to develop energy-efficient optical brain-inspired (neuromorphic) computing devices through the establishment of a 3D nanofabrication platform that combines recent advances in DNA-programmable assembly and conventional lithographic methods. The developed nanofabrication methodology will be applied to solve outstanding challenges in designing and realizing novel optical metamaterials and their device-level integration for neuromorphic computing devices. By integrating optically active nanoscale components and controlling 3D organization at different scales, from nanometers to millimeters, the proposed approach will offer unprecedented opportunities to create energy-efficient, parallel, fast, and secure neuromorphic computing devices for diverse computation-intensive tasks. The project also will offer training and professional development opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines for undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of backgrounds. The proposed project seeks to increase optical computing density drastically by using novel neuromorphic computing devices. Such devices will be realized through specifically engineered 3D optically active nanostructured media. A neuromorphic computation, inspired by neuron information processing, is performed in this project by light propagating through the engineered media. The approach will enable a new computing paradigm suitable for several types of highly intense mathematical operations, including matrix multiplication, recurrent neural networks, and solving integral equations that can be applied broadly for image recognition. To realize such a computational approach, a DNA-assisted nanofabrication platform will be established. The platform will effectively introduce a required set of nanomaterials and methods in fabricating the designed optical neuromorphic processors. The project will establish methods for creating: (i) Integration of DNA programmable self-assembly and lithographic nanofabrication for fabricating arbitrarily defined surface-bound 3D nanostructures; (ii) Designed metamaterials with grayscale and complex optical refractive indices; (ii) Prescribed 3D nano- and mesoscale organizations of metamaterials over large areas (to a few millimeters) for realizing optical neuromorphic computing devices. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.