Van der Waals colloquium by dr. Marc Serra Garcia from AMOLF (Amsterdam) on "Nanomechanics as an emergent platform for information technologies". In Marc’s lab, the processing of information by structured elastic materials is investigated by combining advanced simulation and design methods with cleanroom fabrication.

Abstract: When thinking about information technologies, the first things to come to mind are electronics, fiber optics or magnetic disks; rarely one things of mechanical systems. Mechanical systems, however, have very interesting properties such as near-zero energy losses and strong geometric nonlinearities, that make them appealing for low-power computing applications.

In this talk, I will discuss two research directions connecting information and mechanics. First, I will talk about our work in implementing zero power speech recognition, a technology aimed at building battery-less smart devices. Second, I will talk about our research in the fundamental energy limits of computing, where we use nanomechanical systems to discover the absolute minimum amount of energy necessary to perform a computation.

The Joan van der Waals colloquium is an ongoing bi-weekly lecture series, organized by LION. As all speakers are instructed to give an accessible lecture for everyone, these lectures aid in getting a broader view of physics. Each colloquium is preceded by an opening act: a PhD student or postdoc from LION and a different field than the invited speaker, to give a 10-min presentation. After the colloquium, there is a chance to meet your colleagues and participate in discussions at the borrel. More information can be found here.