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MSE Seminar: Dr. Nathan Youngblood, University of Pittsburgh Title: Reconfigurable photonic materials for optical memory, computation, and beyond Abstract: Phase-change chalcogenides (such as AgInSbTe and Ge2Sb2Te5) have been used for many years in optical storage (rewritable CDs/DVDs) owing to their high optical contrast and long-term stability. However, only recently has a fully integrated photonic device based on these materials been demonstrated. This approach not only enables non-volatile optical memory on-chip, but also allows multilevel data storage with low drift, low switching energy, and high-speed readout. The first part of this talk will cover new innovations in optical phase-change materials including electrical programming schemes, mixed-mode plasmonic memory, and reconfigurable optical coatings. The second half of the talk will focus on using this photonic memory—together with wavelength division multiplexing and “in-memory” computing techniques—to enable high-speed matrix-vector operations for machine learning applications.
Bio: Dr. Nathan Youngblood joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh as an Assistant Professor in September 2019. As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford from 2017 to 2019, he developed phase-change optical systems and photonic architectures for non-von Neumann computing. In 2016, he received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota where his research focused on integrating 2D materials with silicon photonics for optoelectronic applications. Nathan leads the Youngblood Photonics Lab at Pitt, whose goal is to develop reconfigurable photonic materials, devices, and architectures which have potential to transform the field of artificial intelligence by minimizing computing latency and energy consumption. Nathan’s work has been published in leading journals such as Nature, Nature Photonics, and Science Advances, and featured in popular news outlets such as The Times, London and the Daily Mail. This Event is For: Graduate • Faculty
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