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Rome Lab awards SUNY Poly researchers $900,000 grant

Satyavolu Papa Rao

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“I am excited to congratulate Dr. Papa Rao and Dr. Nate Cady on this significant Air Force Research Laboratory award, which highlights their collaborative effort, the incredible potential of SUNY Poly’s innovative high-tech research, and the power of our globally recognized fabrication capabilities, which drive advances in computing to improve existing and future technologies,” said SUNY Poly Interim President Dr. Grace Wang. “This award is the latest testament to SUNY Poly and AFRL’s collaboration to accelerate technology development towards commercial and defense applications in quantum technologies and AI.”

About the research

The research team led by Papa Rao will work to address current “bottlenecks” in all-electronic implementations of neuromorphic computing by research and development of the “critical elements” of superconducting optoelectronics at the 300mm scale.

The brain-inspired infrastructure will use “ultra-fast, extremely energy efficient” Josephson junctions, which consist of two superconducting materials and a thin non-superconducting material in between. The Josephson junctions will need to be combined with silicon-based infrared photon (light) emitters, which generate light pulses that allow a given neuron to communicate with many downstream neurons.

This arrangement mimics how the human brain works by sending and receiving ultra-short electrical pulses that it uses to store and process information simultaneously, per the release.

Eric Reinhardt