| Project Detail |
Making the building blocks of ion-based computing
Ultracapacitors (also known as supercapacitors) have traditionally been used for very fast, high-energy storage, such as in regenerative braking. But the EU-funded IONOLOGIC project proposes to use them as the building blocks for a new type of computer processing. Just like how living organisms use ions and chemical transmitters in nerves, ultracapacitors can use ions to emulate electronic circuit elements, such as diodes and transistors. The project will use ion electroadsorption in nanoporous carbons and membranes with specific pore sizes and surface functionalities, as well as selective ion-sieving mechanisms that will lead to the creation of logic gates. These gates can then be nanoimprinted onto chips, as the basis for ion-based computing technologies, which could allow on-chip power management.
Ultracapacitors (also referred to as Supercapacitors or ElectricUltracapacitors (also referred to as Supercapacitors or Electric Double Layer Capacitors, EDLCs) stand out as high power devices for ultrafast energy storage. A new paradigm is to use ion electroadsorption devices for logic information processing. In living organisms, ions and chemical transmitters are involved in signaling, managing logic operations and memory, evolutionary optimized in terms of energy-efficiency. My group recently reported the first switchable and directional ultracapacitor devices emulating discrete electronic circuit elements (diode, transistor) as basic building blocks for the realization of logic operations, an important step towards ultracapacitor-based ion information signaling and processing.
IONOLOGIC targets the conceptual design and realization of capacitive logic gates (AND, OR, NAND, etc.) based on ion electroadsorption in nanoporous carbons by integrating multiple switchable EDLC elements into monolithic microdevices. The deliberate deployment of nanoporous carbons and membranes with defined pore size and surface functionality, selective ion-sieving mechanisms, electrolyte depletion and charge transport in nanopores will lead to intrinsic IONOLOGIC gates. Nanoimprint lithography and piezo-printing of nanoporous carbon electrodes offers an emerging enabling technology for monolithic integration of complex electrode structures to finally interconnect multiple gates on a chip. A highly interlaced team architecture conceptualizes switchable ultracapacitors and ion-circuits, designs nanopore-electrolyte pairs, develops new precursor and processing concepts for on chip-deposition of nanoporous materials, and finally realizes prototypical monolithic logic gates.
IONOLOGIC constitutes the basis for novel ion-based computing technologies to reduce energy dissipation in computing architectures and enable on-chip power management in autonomous microelectronic devices in future. |
