My research activities and expertise focus on two areas: materials growth, and neuromorphic computing.
In the area of materials, the focus of my research is understanding the fundamentals of materials growth, with a specific emphasis on the areas of advanced electronic materials and semiconductor processing. My research leverages the advanced computing, X-ray characterization, and the cutting-edge materials synthesis capabilities at Argonne to understand the synthesis of nanomaterials using chemistry-based techniques such as atomic layer deposition. My research seeks to accelerate the transition of lab-scale breakthroughs into manufacturing by rationalizing the role that chemistry has on the properties of nanomaterials and the scaling up to manufacturing scale. While my primary focus is on nanomaterials, we have recently successfully transferred this approach to additive manufacturing.
In the area of neuromorphic computing, my research focuses primarily on the exploration of novel architectures and algorithms to design smart systems and sensors inspired on the insect brain. Our research focuses on areas that go beyond the current state of the art in machine learning, to focus on system with the ability to adapt to changes in their environment in real time and capable of exhibiting task-dependent learning and processing. As part of the research in this area, I am currently leading a project from DARPA’s Lifelong Learning Machines program focused on the development of such systems. My research also focuses on understanding how to best translate these architectures into hardware, both through the exploration of existing neuromorphic hardware, and the development of design principles that will help guide the design of novel materials and devices capable of implementing some of these novel capabilities. Our main target application us the development of more power-efficient, smarter sensors tor self-driving vehicles and drones, and internet of things-related applications such as infrastructure monitoring or networked sensors.