Chemistry Department Seminar: Sieun Chae, Oregon State University

Title: Material Design Strategies for Next-Generation Power and Memory Hardware in AI Era

Abstract: "The rapid escalation of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing has placed unprecedented demands on underlying hardware architectures, requiring fundamental breakthroughs in both power efficiency and non-volatile storage. This seminar presents targeted material design strategies for next-generation electronics across two technical themes. First, we explore extreme-band-gap engineering, challenging the boundary between semiconductors and insulators. Utilizing a high-throughput framework combining first-principles calculations, we demonstrate that semiconducting behavior can persist far beyond conventional limits (exceeding that of AlN (6.2 eV) and stretching up to 9.5 eV) while retaining shallow dopability and high charge mobility. Second, we address the discovery of novel non-volatile memory compounds within highly complex structural landscapes. We present the discovery of robust ferroelectricity in wurtzite Be1-xMgxO and extend this exploration into the vast compositional space of multi-component, high-entropy perovskites. To navigate this intractable search space, we demonstrate an advanced machine learning informatics workflow integrating interatomic potentials (MLIPs) and automated multi-agent frameworks to efficiently isolate high-performance ferroelectric candidates."

Bio: "Sieun Chae is an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. She received her B.S. (2015) in Materials Science and Engineering from Yonsei University and worked as a research fellow at Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (2015-2017). She then received Ph.D. (2022) in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Michigan and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University (2022-2023). Her research interests include density functional theory calculations, AI-assisted material discovery, thin film synthesis using pulsed laser deposition and molecular beam epitaxy, ultra-wide-band-gap semiconductors for high-power electronics, and functional oxides for energy-efficient computing devices. Her research has been highlighted in Nature Electronics (2024) and editors pick in APL (2020) and APL (2021)."