Singapore

The emergence of novel memories such as memristors or resistive memory (RRAM) opens the way to highly energy-efficient computation, near- or in-memory. However, this type of computation has to deal with the severe unreliability of emerging memories. To address this issue, inspired by the architecture of animal brains, we present a manufactured differential hybrid CMOS/RRAM memory architecture suitable for neural network implementation that functions without formal error correction. We also highlight that using highly error-prone programming conditions only slightly reduces network accuracy while bringing important benefits in energy efficiency. Then, we present a second approach where the probabilistic nature of RRAM, instead of being mitigated, can be fully exploited to implement a type of probabilistic learning. We show that the inherent variability in hafnium oxide RRAM can naturally implement the sampling step in the Metropolis-Hastings Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm and train experimentally an array of 16,384 RRAM cells to recognize images of cancerous tissues using this technique. These results highlight the interest in fully embracing the unreliable nature of emerging devices in neuromorphic designs.

MATERIALS FOR HUMANITY (MH 21)

Using Imperfect Nanodevices to Achieve Energy-Efficient Artificial Intelligence

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The 20th International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (**AIxIA 2021**) is organized by AIxIA (Associazione Italiana per l’Intelligenza Artificiale), which is a non-profit scientific society founded in 1988 and devoted to the promotion of Artificial Intelligence. The society aims to increase the public awareness of AI, encourage the teaching of it and promote research in the field.

 
 



**General Chair**

Stefania Bandini, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italyand RCAST - The University of Tokyo, Japan


**Program Chairs**

Viviana Mascardi, University of Genova, Italy; Matteo Palmonari, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy; Giuseppe Vizzari, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

**Organizing Committee**

Francesca Gasparini, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy (**Chair**); Stefano Ferilli, University of Bari, Italy; Marta Giltri, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy; Daniela Briola, University of Insubria, Italy


**Publicity and Communication Committee**

Elisabetta Fersini, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy (**Chair**); Angelo Ferrando, University of Genova, Italy; Francesca Alessandra Lisi, University of Bari, Italy; Giovanni Stilo, University of L'Aquila, Italy; Marco Viviani, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy


**Workshop Chairs**

Gabriella Cortellessa, ISTC-CNR, Rome, Italy; Silvia Rossi, University of Naples Federico II, Italy; Fabio Stella, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy


**PC Members**

Fulvio Mastrogiovanni, University of Genova, Italy; Roberto Basili, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy; Nicola Gatti, Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy; Stefano Bistarelli, University of Perugia, Italy; Piero Poccianti, Consorzio Operativo Gruppo MPS, Italy; Francesco Scarcello, University of Calabria, Italy; Flavio S. Correa Da Silva, University of São Paulo, Brazil; Elena Cabrio, Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, Inria, I3S, France; Antonio Lieto, University of Turin, Italy; Diego Calvanese, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy; Alessio Micheli, University of Pisa, Italy; Francesca A. Lisi University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy; Mauro Vallati, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom; Bernardo Magnini, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Italy; Luigia C. Aiello, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Rafael H. Bordini, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Chiara Ghidini, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Italy; Federico Bergenti, University of Parma, Italy; Francesco Ricca, University of Calabria, Italy; Andrea Burattin, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark; Angelo Oddi, ISTC-CNR, Italian National Research Council, Italy; Farshad Badie, Aalborg University, Denmark; Emanuel Sallinger, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Marin Lujak, University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain; Giancarlo Fortino, University of Calabria, Italy; Salvatore Gaglio, University of Palermo, Italy; Johannes K. Fichte, TU Dresden, Germany; Matteo Baldoni, University of Turin, Italy; Fabrizio Riguzzi, Univeristy of Ferrara, Italy; Ivana Dusparic, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Serena Villata, CNRS - Laboratoire d'Informatique, Signaux et Systèmes de Sophia-Antipolis, France; Paolo Rosso, Technical University of Valencia, Spain; Ana L. C. Bazzan, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Gianluigi Greco, University of Calabria, Italy; Stefano Cagnoni, University of Parma, Italy; Gian Luca Pozzato, University of Turin, Italy; Salvatore Ruggieri, University of Turin, Italy; Claudio Di Ciccio, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; Eloisa Vargiu, Cetaqua, Water Technology Center, Spain; Marco Maratea, University of Genova, Italy; Andrea Roli, University of Bologna, Italy; Viviana Patti, University of Turin, Italy; Stefania Costantini, University of L'Aquila, Italy; Antonius Weinzierl, Vienna University of Technology, Austria; Silvia Rossi, University of Naples Federico II, Italy; Giovanni Semeraro, University of Bari, Italy; Luciano Serafini, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Italy; Laura Giordano, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy; Ernesto Jimenez-Ruiz, City, University of London, United Kingdom; Marco Gavanelli, University of Ferrara, Italy; Federico Chesani, University of Bologna, Italy

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AIxIA 2021

The 20th International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA 2021) is organized by AIxIA (Associazione Italiana per l’Intelligenza Artificiale), which is a non-profit scientific society founded in 1988 and devoted to the promotion of Artificial Intelligence. The society aims to increase the public awareness of AI, encourage the teaching of it and promote research in the field.

technical paper

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MH 21 is arranged around 6 themes that focus attention on pressing needs that should be addressed to enhance the well-being of communities and provide a forum for presenting breakthrough discoveries.

In this talk, we show that the phenomenon known as "Valley Hall Effect", whereby a an electric field induces a transverse valley current, is better described as an instance of the Orbital Hall Effect (OHE), where the ambiguous ``valley'' indices are replaced by a physical quantity, the orbital magnetic moment, which can be defined uniformly over the entire Brillouin zone. This description removes ambiguities that are present in the definition of the valley Hall current, as the conductivity in the orbital Hall effect is unambiguously defined as the Brillouin zone integral of a new quantity, called the orbital Berry curvature. The reformulation in terms of OHE is illustrated in the case of gapped graphene, which has been previously proposed to be a good platform to observe the valley Hall effect. The new formulation provides a direct explanation to the orbital moments accumulated at the edges of the sample, which were observed in previous Kerr rotation measurements.


Orbital Hall effect as an alternative to valley Hall effect in gapped graphene

It is known that quantum phenomena become more pronounced in materials with reduced dimensionalities. The family of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit a host of emergent quantum phenomena, such as valley-selective optical selection rules, the fractional quantum Hall effect and single photon emission. In this talk, we present insights from recent first principles calculations that map the atomic and electronic structure of 2D TMD materials to observable quantum phenomena. Using first principles calculations without any empirical parameters, we predict the Landau levels as well as single-band and exciton g-factors for 2D semiconducting H-phase TMDs, and elucidate the role of many-body interactions in the Zeeman effect [1]. We further present the optical properties of defect-induced localized excitons in these TMD materials, which are of relevance to single photon emission and quantum photonics applications [2]. Finally, we discuss how many-body interactions and interfacial hybridization can lead to spin-dependent tunneling barriers in cobalt pthalocyanine molecules adsorbed on the 2D TMD, VSe2 [3].

[1] Physical Review Research, 2, 033256 (2020)
[2] ACS Nano 13, 6050 (2019)
[3] J Phys Chem Lett 11, 9358 (2020)


Valleytronics, Quantum Photonics and Spintronics in Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Electron emission from a surface or charge injection across an interface is a fundamental process in electronics and photonics. Depending on the energy involved, it can be broadly characterized into 3 different processes known as thermionic emission TE (by thermal energy), field emission FE (by quantum tunneling) and photoemission PE (by absorption of photons or optical tunneling). When the amount of charge is sufficient high, it will affect the space charge field that the process will saturated. With the development of new quantum materials including two-dimensional (2D) materials and 2D/3D Topological semi-metals, many classical laws or models will require revisions to account for new material properties, as well as novel operating regimes in nanometer dimensions and in ultrashort time scales. Thus the basic interaction of electrons between these quantum materials should be studied carefully before wrongly use the classical models directly. In this talk, some recent and self-consistent models will be presented, with applications related to electronics and photonics. These new models exhibit smooth transition to the classical models, report new findings to explain some experimental results, and to predict new operating regimes.

Charge injection and its interaction with quantum materials

Over the last two decades, prototype devices for future classical and quantum computing technologies have been fabricated by using scanning tunnelling microscopy and hydrogen resist lithography to position phosphorus atoms in silicon with atomic-scale precision. Despite these successes, it is only recently that our group demonstrated that a donor precursor molecule other than phosphine is compatible with the hydrogen resist lithography technique [1]. Here we describe the successful fabrication of atomic-scale structures of arsenic-in-silicon, using arsine (AsH3) as the precursor molecule. We fully elucidate the surface chemistry and reaction pathways of arsine on Si(001), revealing significant differences to phosphine. The properties of arsenic-in-silicon devices, and potential benefits of using arsenic instead of phosphorus, are briefly highlighted using spectroscopic and electrical characterisation techniques. Also presented will be recent work showing that broadband electric force microscopy (bb-EFM) can be used to characterise the properties of a nanoscale p-n junction [2], made from phosphorus and boron using hydrogen lithography by our collaborators at IBM Research - Zürich.
[1] T.J.Z. Stock et al., ACS Nano, 14 3316 (2020).
[2] G. Gramse et al., Nature Electronics, 3 531 (2020).


Fabrication and characterisation of nano- and atomic-scale dopant structures in silicon

Recent progress on activatable fluorescent imaging probes and photosensitizers

Switchable phototheranostic nanomaterials are of particular interest for specific biosensing, high-quality imaging, and targeted therapy in the field of precision nanomedicine. Here, we develop a “one-for-all” nanomaterial (NanoPcTBs) that self-assembles from flexible and versatile phthalocyanine building blocks. Fluorescence and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation could be triggered depending on a targeted, protein-induced, partial disassembly mechanism, which creates opportunities for low-background fluorescence imaging and activatable photodynamic therapy (PDT).1,2 
On the othet hand, the development of activatable and responsive optical probes is contributing to a better understanding of oncogenesis at the molecular level. Monitoring fluctuations in enzyme overexpression facilitates early tumors detection and excision. Relying on abnormal alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, DQM-ALP was successfully used to differentiate between tumors tissues and normal tissues in nude BABL/c mice bearing HepG-2 and HeLa xenograft tumors.3 In addition, a near-infrared two-photon fluorescent probe was developed to not only specially image carboxylesterase (CE) activity in vivo and in situ but also target orthotopic liver tumor after systemic administration.4

References

1. X. Li, S. Yu, Y. Lee, T. Guo, N. Kwon, D. Lee, S. C. Yeom, Y. Cho, G. Kim, J.-D. Huang, S. Choi, K. T. Nam, J. Yoon, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 1366-1372.
2. H.-B. Cheng, B. Qiao, H. Li, J. Cao, Y. Luo, K. M. K. Swamy, J. Zhao, Z. Wang, J. Y. Lee, X.-J. Liang, J. Yoon, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 2413-2422.
3. H. Li, Q. Yao, F. Xu, Y. Li, D. Kim, J. Chung, G. Baek, X. Wu, P. F. Hillman, E. Y. Lee, H. Ge, J. Fan, J. Wang, S.-J. Nam, X. Peng, J. Yoon, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, 59, 10186-10195.
4. X. Wu, R. Wang, S. Qi, N. Kwon, J. Han, H. Kim, H. Li, F. Yu, J. Yoon, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, doi.org/10.1002/anie.202101190.


Recent progress on activatable fluorescent imaging probes and photosensitizers

Inspired by Natural biomineralization processes, our research focuses on the rational design of peptide- and nucleic acid-based biomolecular templates for the synthesis of multifunctional metallic and carbon-based nanomaterials with tunable optical properties and biofunctionalities for sensing, imaging, drug/gene delivery and therapy. Such bio-hybrid nanomaterials exhibit synergistic combination of biological functions and chemical properties resulting from the hard nanocore and soft biomolecular shell. For example, we have developed a series of metallic nanobiosensors with target specific bio-shell to detect wide range of analytes in solution from small molecule drugs, protein biomarkers to cancer and bacteria cells [1-4]. Recently, we have exploited the use of designer DNA and peptide templates to synthesize a palette of photoluminescent metal nanoclusters (NCs < 2nm in core size) which could be used as multicolour probes for bioimaging, image-guided photodynamic therapy and multiplexed sensing [5-7]. We also take this biomimetic approach to ‘turn’ the native protein into bioactive fluorescent nanosensor for rapid drug screening without tedious genetic engineering. To enable greener synthesis with good biocompatibility and sustainability, pure organic resources and biomass wastes were utilized to synthesize carbon dots from biomolecules (biodots) and metal-enhanced fluorescent nanodots with tailored functionalities for a range of biomedical applications [8-12]. For instance, bioinspired antimicrobial biodots has been successfully developed for ultrasensitive pathogen detection (1 cfu/ml in < 0.5 hour) as well as to combat broad spectrum multi-drug resistant bacteria [11]. With further understanding in biotemplates design, we expect a far more extensive applications of bioinspired hybrid nanomaterials for the advanced biomedical diagnostic and treatment towards personalized nanomedicine in future.

Bioinspired Nanomaterials for Biomedical Diagnostics and Treatment Towards Personalized Nanomedicine

Seeing the Sound: Optical Neural Interfaces for In Vivo Neuromodulation

Light plays vital roles in organisms for manipulating a variety of important biological processes because of its high degree of spatiotemporal resolution and ease of precisely regulating parameters. Studying biological pathways underlying diseased states always requires bidirectional controlling over the signal processes. To allow programmable or bidirectional regulations of multiple biological pathways, probes should exhibit orthogonal emission properties with modulation of external stimuli such as excitation wavelength. The complicated energy level structure of lanthanide ions can be an asset to achieve such multi-coloured emission, if one can precisely navigate the energy transfer pathways within single lanthanide ions to favour discrete energy transitions. This challenge once overcome would eliminate the need for using multiple lanthanide ions for obtaining orthogonal emissive properties. For example, Er3+ ions are able to produce green color luminescence through the 2H11/2, 4S3/2→4I15/2 transition, and red emission from the 4F9/2→4I15/2 transition. We have explored cross-relaxation to manipulate energy migration within the same lanthanide activator ion (Er3+) in upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) to produce orthogonal red and green emissions, simply by adjusting the excitation wavelength from 980 nm to 808 nm. These UCNPs offer a powerful tool for programmable activation of two synergistic light gated ion channels VChR1 and Jaws in the same cell to manipulate membrane depolarization and hyperpolarization for a multitude of disease therapies, demonstrated here for cardiac pacing. Moreover, this orthogonal emissive UCNP was designed to develop single-line based test strip, in which one emission can be used as reporting signal, and another one as calibrating signal. Due to the removal of control lines, such novel strategy greatly reduces strip size, facilitating design a testing array for multiple detections of different samples.

Orthogonal Upconversion Luminescence from Single Lanthanide Activator Ion for Disease Diagnosis

Dental caries remains a persistent major oral healthcare burden worldwide with little significant improvement in dental healthcare in the last 30 years. Intraoral/biofilm-tooth pH is the single parameter that has demonstrated accurate assessment of the caries risk, reflecting the summative integrated outcome of the complicated interactions between the three etiological factors, namely microorganisms/biofilm, diet/carbohydrates, and tooth/saliva/host. However, there is no technology/system capable of probing both the micro-pH profile in dentin tissue and acidogenic oral biofilm simultaneously, with high spatial/temporal resolution of pathophysiologic acid attacks. Herein, a highly sensitive pH-responsive Hybrid NanoParticle (pH-NP) is developed coupled with an ex vivo tooth-biofilm caries model to simulate key cariogenic determinants/steps in a well-controlled platform to decipher the mechanistic complexity of caries initiation/formation. The pH-NP emits two fluorescence intensities that can change in opposite directions with pH to measure with a ratiometric output sensitivity of 13.4-fold a broad clinically-relevant pH range of 3.0–8.0. Using [H+], in addition to pH, to calculate the “area-under-curve” corroborates with the “minimum-pH” in semi-quantifying the demineralizing potential in each biofilm-dentin zones/depth. The data mechanistically elucidates a two-pronged cariogenic effect of a popular-acidic-sweet-drink, in inundating the biofilm/tooth-system with H+ from both the drink and the metabolic by-products of biofilm.

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