Deji Akinwande, PhD
Chair Professor
University of Texas at Austin
Friday, September 27, 2024 | 2 p.m. | 230 A Davis Hall
This talk will present our latest research adventures on 2D quantum materials towards greater scientific understanding and advanced engineering applications. In particular, the talk will highlight our work on single-atom monolayer memory, zero-power RF/5G/6G switches, wearable sensors for mobile health, and high-performance fuel cells. Non-volatile memory devices based on 2D quantum materials are an application of defects and is a rapidly advancing field with rich physics that can be attributed to multi-physical phenomenon including metal adsorption into vacancies. The memory devices can be used for neuromorphic computing and operate as switches up to 500GHz. Likewise, from a practical point, electronic sensors based on atomic materials such as graphene have ushered a new material platform with highly desirable practical attributes including optical transparency, mechanical imperceptibility, and is the thinnest conductive electrode sensor that can be integrated on skin for physiological measurements. In addition, the same material can be configured for quantum biosensing with state-of-the-art sensitivity for virus detection. Lastly, fuel cells are a relatively new area of research using 2D membranes and we will discuss progress in this direction.
Deji Akinwande is a Chair Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Fellow of the IEEE, MRS, and APS. He received the PhD degree from Stanford University in 2009. His research focuses on 2D materials and nanoelectronics/technology, pioneering device innovations from lab towards applications. Prof. Akinwande has been honored with the Fulbright Specialist Award, the Bessel-Humboldt Research Award, the U.S Presidential PECASE award, the inaugural Gordon Moore Inventor Fellow award, the inaugural IEEE Nano Geim and Novoselov Graphene Prize, and several other government, industrial and philanthropic awards. His research achievements have been featured by Nature news, Time and Forbes magazine, BBC, Discover magazine, Wall Street Journal, and many media outlets. He serves as an Editor for ACS Nano, and Nature NPJ 2D Materials and Applications. He was a past chair of 2022 Gordon Research Conference on 2D materials, 2019 Device Research Conference (DRC), and the 2018 Nano-device committee of IEEE IEDM Conference.