Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology

Biography

Biography: Mohammad I Younis

Abstract

There has been remarkable interest in nanomechanical computing elements, which can potentially lead to a new era in computation due to their re-configurability, high integration density, and high switching speed. The last decade has witnessed increasing research interest in mechanical computing for scalable mechanical computing elements. This has been primarily driven by the need to overcome the higher leakage current and power dissipation of the transistor technology, which have become pronounced as the technology is reaching its physical limit. Downscaling MEMS devices into the nano regime offers exciting opportunities for realizing devices of ultralow power consumption, high sensitivity, and high integration density. The ongoing progress in nanofabrication technologies has enabled exploration of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) for mechanical computing for memory and logic gate devices. In this work, we present an in-plane nanomechanical beam resonator, operated in its linear regime, capable of dynamically performing NOR, NOT, XNOR, XOR, and AND logic operations. The stiffness of the nano-beam and hence its resonance frequency is modulated electro- thermally with two DC voltage sources representing the logic inputs. We also present for the first time an in-depth investigation into the performance of such electromechanical resonators under the effect of frequency fluctuations with temperature variation. The performance
of this re-configurable logic device is examined at elevated temperatures, ranging from 25°C to 85°C, demonstrating its resilience for most of the logic operations. The proposed device can potentially achieve switching rate in μ sec, switching energy in nJ, and an integration density up to 106 per cm2. The practical realization of this re-configurable device paves the way for nano-elements-based mechanical computing.