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The 13th
U.S.-Korea Forum on Nanotechnology: Brain-inspired Computing & Nano-Biomimetics for Energy and Water Sustainability
Seoul, Korea
Adopted on September 27, 2016
The
first decade of the 21st century has been flourished by the advent
of nanotechnology convergence and its application in a broad spectrum of
science and technology areas along with interdisciplinary research initiatives
to achieve rapid advancement toward fourth industrial revolution. To further
promote development of new technologies, the United States (National Science
Foundation, NSF) and Korea (Ministry of Science ICT and Future Planning, MSIP)
have been vigorously encouraging a common platform for the exchange of ideas
and research collaboration in nanotechnology through these Forums, set up by
the recommendations made by the Korea-US joint committee on Scientific and
Technological Cooperation, held on October 31, 2002 in Seoul.
Ever
since then, our Forums have been extremely successful, thriving over the decade
of their organization history and promoting tremendous development in
nanotechnology. These Forums have been a testimony to the transformative power
of identifying a concept or trend and laying out a vision at the synergistic
confluence of diverse scientific research areas. Series of our Forums have successfully
provided a common platform for effective networking between research
communities and industries in both countries by identifying emerging areas in
nanotechnology which generate huge impact. This is evident from major
collaboration initiatives between US and Korea, established via our Forums.
Organizing the Forums has significantly expedited the generation of cutting
edge technologies for the thrust areas in both countries. These Forums have been well publicized
through Carnegie Mellon website: http://www.cmu.edu/ nanotechnology-forum/.
With
this mission, we established the 1st U.S.-Korea Forum on
Nanotechnology, via National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, on October 14th
-18th of 2003, in Seoul,
Korea. As the Korean counterpart to NSF, participation was overseen and funded
by MSIP. The topics in the subsequent Forums were recommended by the advisory
committee members depending on the need of both countries at that time, and the
locations of these Forums have alternated between Korea and the USA. We
organized the 2nd U.S.-Korea Forum, on nanomanufacturing research
and the development of educational programs covering the field of
nanotechnology. The 3rd Forum focused on active devices and systems
research, unlike the passive systems studied during the first two Forums. We
organized the 4th Forum, where the focus was on the sustainable nano
energy with emphasis on the design and characterization of materials as well as
devices and systems for energy applications. The 5th Forum focused
on the emerging area of nano-biotechnology emphasizing novel nano-biomaterials,
instrumentation technologies, and integrated systems for overcoming critical
challenges in biomedicine and delivery of healthcare, as well as their
environmental, health & safety (EHS), and toxicity issues. The 6th
Forum dealt with nano-electronics with emphasis on fundamentals as well as
integration with applications including convergence technology with
biotechnology. The 7th Forum oversaw discussions ranging in
nanotechnology convergence over current and future energy technologies to
provide environmentally friendly solutions to the crippling challenges facing
the energy sector. These seven Forums culminated in a seamless developmental
and feedback process documenting the advent of nanotechnology convergence in
broad spectrum of science and technology areas, for the first decade of the
21st century (NANO1). The 8th Forum in 2011, on nanotechnology
convergence in sustainability, heralded new horizons in nanotechnology for the
next decade (NANO2) by addressing critical problems faced by an ever increasing
global population, with an emphasis on environmentally friendly technologies
for the future on nanotechnology for sustainability, focusing on water reuse
and desalination, greenhouse gas capture and conversion, and sustainable
natural resources. The 9th Forum focused on channeling
nanotechnology to the masses to responsibly address broad societal challenges
such as nanoscience fundamentals, sustainability, and state-of-the-art
applications for the new generation of nanotechnology products. The 10th
Forum focused on laying out a roadmap for a new generation of nanotechnological
products and processes. The 11th Forum focused on laying out a new
paradigm in nanomanufacturing, nanocomposite, and nanoinformatics. This Forum
provides an opportunity to realize the potential of nanotechnology through the
development of innovative and sustainable nanomanufacturing technologies for
producing novel strong, light and smart nanocomposites and their management via
nanoinformatics which will likely lead to paradigm shifting next generation
enhanced performance of products in a broad range of existing industries
including aerospace, automotive, energy, environmental remediation,
information, and power industries as well as development of new industries. The
12th Forum focused on laying out a roadmap for a new paradigm in
nanoscience-convergence in 2-D materials and for water purification via
exploring improvements to technological tools for the application of
nanotechnology and functional and novel nanomaterials to water-related topics.
Thepresent
13th Forum was held at Seoul, Korea on September 26-&27, 2016, and
73 eminent scientists and policy makers
in the field of nanotechnology (including 36 presenters) attended. This Forum focused
on laying out a roadmap for a new paradigm in nanoscience-convergence in brain-inspired
(neuromorphic) computers and water & energy by exploring improvements to
technological tools for the application of nanotechnology and novel functional
nanomaterials to brain-inspired computing and water & energy related
topics.
To
further extend from brain-inspired computing systems during this Forum, we
intend to organize the 14th Forum next year which will be held at
Washington D.C. area on sensor for Internet of Things (IoT). Future IT systems
and infrastructures will have fundamentally new capabilities based on the
creation of insight from data. Insight computing systems will leverage and
substantially add to the capabilities of cyber-physical systems and the IoT. Several major breakthroughs are
required not only in the basic devise that store and process information, but
in the way a computer analyzes images, sounds, and patterns, interprets and
learns from data, and identifies and solves problems. Convergence to
nanotechnology can achieve this ambitious task, such as creating computer chips
that are 100 times faster yet consumes less power. In addition, the combination
of distributed networked sensors with massive data centers and cloud-based
computing capabilities will make it possible. In the area of energy efficient
sensing and computing, energy efficiency is vital at all levels – from the
smallest sensor to ultra-high performance processors and systems. Sensor nodes
also often need to operate without access to the electric gird for power-using
batteries or harvesting energy from the environment. Major
challenges lies in the fabrication of ultimately compact, heterogeneous
hardware that includes sensors, including dramatic assembly and packaging
innovations, including automation, parallelization, thin wafer handling, and 3D
system modeling for more compact design.
The following are recommendations
made by the two subgroups during this Forum:
Sub-group 1: Brain-inspired
computing
Challenges and
Applications
- The relationship of system function to
component level behavior and ultimately to device level characteristics is
currently not well understood; specifically, a clear understanding of how the
brain actually works and how that understanding can be properly abstracted for
engineering purposes is lacking. It
important to realize that for engineering purposes a one-to-one correlation
between brain-inspired systems and real neuromorphic systems is not essential.
- Because of the interdisciplinary nature of
neuromorphic systems, there are still many related topics that need to be
better understood.
- For brain-inspired computing systems, the
memory specification is still unknown.
- There is an urgent need to demonstrate
practical brain-inspired computing systems or sensors to catalyze expanded
research in innovative algorithms, and new components and devices for even
higher levels of performance by brain-inspired systems.
- Complexity in brain-inspired system
construction will require a shared infrastructure very much like the MOSIS
infrastructure so that researchers can worry less about the details of devices
and focus on component and system design.
- Creation of a government-supported foundry such as
the proposed “micro-fab” in Korea at the 180n node would be useful. Such a micro-fab foundry could allow
fabrication of chips up to metal level M3, so that researchers would be free to
add their unique devices to levels above M3.
Action
Items
Organize and plan a workshop for discussion
of the topics of collaboration. Begin a discussion on the establishment of
micro-fab for a foundry. Identify sources of financial support for
joint collaboration projects. Identify lead investigators for
collaboration in this field to facilitate networking and co-funding. Suggested
nucleus of investigators in the US that could form the initial collaborating team maybe drawn from among the
following: Phillip Wong (Stanford),
Elias Towe and Maysam Charmanza (Carnegie Mellon), Pinaki Mazumder (Michigan), Shreyas Sen
(Purdue), Jae-Sun Seo & Shimeng Yu (Arizona State).
Suggested nucleus of investigators in Korea that could form the initial collaborating team maybe drawn from among the
following: Byung-Gook Park (Seoul National University), Byoung Hun Lee (Gwanju
Institute of Science and Technology), Changhwan Choi (Hanyang University), Joohyun
Lee (ETRI), Hyunsan Hwang (POSTECH), and
Doo Seok Jeong (KIST). Korean coordinator for collaboration is designated
to Jo-won Lee (Hanyang University), while US side is determined later.
Suggested Areas and Mode of Collaboration between
US and Korea
Useful areas of collaboration could be in
devices, components, algorithms and systems; collaboration should be structured
to emphasize fundamental physics of new devices for neuromorphic components and
systems since the emerging industries in this area are unlikely to be involved
in fundamental physics. However, synergies at the component and system level
with industry will be important to secure their support and collaboration in
transitioning new systems for practical use. Since Korea has already secured funding for
a few projects in brain-inspired systems, it will be important to choose the
areas of collaboration carefully to ensure complementary rather than
duplication or overlap. Equally important to structuring the
collaboration, care will be needed in selecting topics on the US side in order
to bring new perspectives to existing funded programs in brain-inspired computing
or related programs such as the new NSF effort on Energy Efficient Computing
from Devices to Architectures (E2CDA). It would be useful to organize a workshop
whose objective would be to identify and bring focus to a few key areas on
which the US-Korea collaboration could be built on. Financial support for such a workshop might
be secured from the NSF and other organizations in US as well as MSIP in Korea
that have an interest in brain-inspired computing research.
Sub-group 2: Water & Energy
Opportunities
for the nanotechnology to address critical challenges at the water-energy nexus
and the barriers in research, education, and knowledge and technology transfer.
A. Water
Novel approaches to sense and treat
contaminants of emerging concern Integration of novel sensors into treatment
systems Selective treatment system that is flexible
and tunable to match the treated water quality for intended use (e.g., water
for power generation) Harnessing light directly to reduce the
cost of water purification (e.g., photo-catalyst, nano-photonics, upconversion
phosphors) Next generation of multifunctional
membranes for treatment, re-use, and desalination Next generation of low cost fast and
wireless sensors to detect metal contamination and pathogens B. Energy
Prototyping, testing, and validating the
performance of new nanomaterials and energy storage device (e.g., batteries and
super capacitors)
Fundamental research to improve energy
extraction Nanotechnology enhanced biofuel production
(e.g., separation, catalyst, Life-cycle engineering)
C. Water & Energy Nexus
- Low energy desalination
- Nano bio-refining for FEW (Food, Energy,
and Water)
- Convergence of water treatment and resource
recovery
Opportunity for collaboration & Proposed
Teams for Collaborations
A. Low energy desalination
B. Smart material (sense, capture, and remove/destroy priority pollutants)
development and integration into the water treatment system
C. Multiscale/multiphysics model for advanced materials and system enabling
technologies for water & energy nexus
D. Vision driven basic research
E. Suggest ideas for moving forward
Pedro Alvarez (Rice), Mamadou
Diallo(CalTech), Byong-Hun Jeon(Hanyang), Yousung Jung(KAIST) as initial
contact
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On behalf of the U.S participants
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On behalf of the Korean
participants
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Myung S. Jhon, Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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Jo-Won Lee, Professor
Hanyang University
Seoul, Korea
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