The US Department of Energy (DOE) is funding research at the University of Arkansas exploring more efficient computing.
Charles Paillard, research professor of physics and director of the Smart Ferroic Materials Center at the University has been awarded almost $975,000 by the DOE for his research into aluminum scandium nitride at an atomic level.
The research is hoped to find solutions for "dramatically" faster computers which are also more energy efficient.
The project is being conducted in partnership with the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
According to Paillard, the research is "trying to see how we can move atoms at the lowest energy cost possible."
Ferrorelectrics are a class of materials with spontaneous polarity that can be reversed by an external voltage, and could potentially create faster computers.
“Most of the ferroelectrics we know are made of oxides and very difficult to integrate on silicon platforms that are everywhere,” Paillard added. “So, we either decide to change all the computing technology in the world, which is going to cost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and take decades, or we find new ferroelectric materials that are easier to integrate on silicon.”
Aluminum scandium nitride can be integrated into existing silicon and has been shown to have ferroelectric properties necessary for computers. Palliard is researching, at an atomic level, how the polarity of aluminum scandium nitride switches.
The researchers involved will spend time at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and France’s CentraleSupélec School of Engineering.
The DOE funds a significant amount of research and also has a large amount of computing power across its National Laboratories. DCD interviewed the DOE's CIO Ann Dunkin in the latest edition of the DCD Magazine. You can read it here.
