Colloquium: Frontiers in Materials Science 2025. Beatriz Noheda. «The matter of future computers»

Although neuromorphic computing concepts have been put forward half a century ago, the urgency for low power solutions that can process big data efficiently is a recent development. So far, neuromorphic (or brain-inspired) computing is the only paradigm that can offer energy savings of several orders of magnitude. However, getting there requires a huge multidisciplinary effort and a holistic approach that starts with the use of devices with intrinsic plasticity. Here I will highlight how recent progress in materials science is opening the way for future cognitive devices, giving examples from the research of my own group. In particular, I will present work on memristive devices with transition metal oxides, such as nickelates and manganites, as well as with novel nanoscale ferroelectrics based on hafnium oxide.

Beatriz Noheda is full Professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where she chairs the Solid State Materials for Electronics group, at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials. Noheda is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of the IEEE- Robert E. Newnham Ferroelectrics Award. She has been elected member of the Netherlands Academy of Technology and Innovation (AcTI) and has served as member of numerous national and international committees, as well as of several editorial boards (including the Board of Advisors of Science). She is the author of more than 150 publications, receives more than 10 personal invitations per year to speak in international conferences and has given more than 10 plenary and keynote talks. Noheda is the founding director of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials center (CogniGron).

Noheda received her PhD in Physics from the UAM in Madrid in 1996). She arrived in Groningen in 2004 after being awarded a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship. Before that, she had been Assistant Physicist (tenure-track) at the Physics Department in Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York), and beamline scientist at the NSLS synchrotron. Noheda had also held various research stays and positions at University of Saarlandes, Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.