US Department of Energy funds $975,000 in aluminium scandium nitride based computational research

A Charles Paillard-led research project from the University of Arkansas has been awarded $975,000 from the US Department of Energy to develop a cost-effective computational system. Two additional physics professors from the University, Laurent Bellaiche and Gregory Salamo, are the co-principal investigators on the project.

The grant comes from the Department of Energy's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

Paillard, research professor of physics and director of the Smart Ferroic Materials Center at the University, is delving deep into aluminium scandium nitride at an atomic level to fasten computers, which will consecutively prove energy efficient immensely.

In the US, data centres account for 2 per cent of energy consumption and are predicted to rise as the high-speed or Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing market grows. Ferroelectrics, a category of materials with spontaneous polarity that can be reversed by an external voltage, have the potential to create faster computers that consume less energy.

According to Paillard, the research aims to discover the process of atomic movement, resulting in lowest energy cost possible. He adds, "Most of the ferroelectrics we know are made of oxides and very difficult to integrate on silicon platforms that are everywhere. 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."

The preliminary emphasis will be on studying aluminium scandium nitride's domain wall, the space between the negative and positive polarities. As aluminium scandium nitride can be integrated into existing silicon, it has been shown to have ferroelectric properties necessary for computers.

"To explore such a complex topic with a vast array of techniques, we need complementary groups to help us," Paillard said, "I would say it's a global effort."

The project, which is partnered between the Smart Ferroic Materials Center at the University of Arkansas and the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, will see its lead scientists spend time at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and France's CentraleSupélec School of Engineering.