Title: Materials for the future

Speaker: Prof. Sir K. S. Novoselov (Nobel Laureate) 

Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials, National University of Singapore, Singapore 

Time: 10:00 a.m.- 11:30 a.m., (Thur.) 31 Aug., 2023 

Venue: Lecture Hall, North campus, IMR CAS 

Welcome to attend! 

Today’s materials are predominantly defined by their properties which are independent of time and environment. In many cases, such stability is useful, as it makes the behaviour of devices based on such materials robust and predictable. However, emergent technologies would strongly benefit from adaptive materials with memory functions and with properties that change through feedback from the environment and control signals. Good examples are active membranes, which can change their permeability depending on the external conditions or beyond-von Neumann computational approaches such as in-memory computing, which can be strongly boosted by phase-changing materials.  

Such materials could monitor external conditions and adapt their functionality to the new set of conditions through built-in feedback. A large subclass of such functional materials are materials out-of-equilibrium, which can change their conformation in a circular manner, producing useful work, rectifying energy from ambient surroundings. These materials could have memory and evolve over time, in many senses acting as living matter. 

We call these materials Functional Intelligent Materials. They are absolutely crucial for beyond von Neumann computers (neuromorphic), machine-human interfaces, artificial organs and tissues, smart membranes, smart batteries and catalysts, to name just a few.  

I will discuss recent advances in creation of tailored materials, approaches we can apply to create Functional Intelligent Materials as well as existing and future applications which can be allowed by such materials. 　 

CV 

Prof Sir Konstantin ‘Kostya’ Novoselov FRS was born in Russia in August 1974. He is best known for isolating graphene at The University of Manchester in 2004, and is an expert in condensed matter physics, mesoscopic physics and nanotechnology. Every year since 2014 Kostya Novoselov is included in the list of the most highly cited researchers in the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010 for his achievements with graphene. Kostya is a director of the Institute of Functional Intelligent Materials and holds a position of a Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is also part time Langworthy Professor of Physics and the Royal Society Research Professor at The University of Manchester.  　  

He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and undertook his PhD studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands before moving to The University of Manchester in 2001. Later Professor Novoselov joint the National University of Singapore in 2019. Professor Novoselov has published more than 400 peer-reviewed research papers. He was awarded with numerous prizes, including Nicholas Kurti Prize (2007), International Union of Pure and Applied Science Prize (2008), MIT Technology Review young innovator (2008), Europhysics Prize (2008), Bragg Lecture Prize from the Union of Crystallography (2011), the Kohn Award Lecture (2012), Leverhulme Medal from the Royal Society (2013), Onsager medal (2014), Carbon medal (2016), Dalton medal (2016), Otto Warburg Prize (2019), John von Neumann Professor from the John von Neumann Computer Society (2022) among many others. He was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours.