News

Congratulations to Nithil and Huayuan on their new Scientific Reports publication! Collaborating with Dr. Cory Merkel, we combined experiments, device physics, and AI modeling to uncover how the dynamics of ionically gated synaptic transistors impact neural network performance. 

We had a great time at the Electronic Materials Conference (EMC) in Ann Arbor! Ben presented our lab’s latest research, while Dr. Xu chaired the memory and computation session. It was wonderful catching up with collaborators and colleagues from across the electronic materials community and spending time with our RIT crew. Great job, Ben!

The group celebrates another successful semester! Lots of exciting news to share: Jon was selected for the Emerson Summer Research Scholarship, keeping the group’s 100% success streak alive. Congratulations also to Gavin for receiving both the SoPA Research Scholar recognition and the university-wide Undergraduate Research Scholar recognition. Han and Steve both landed summer internship offers, Ben grew his first successful mixed-dimensional heterostructure which is a first of its kind, Jimmy finished all required coursework and is now ready for uninterrupted research time, and Ayush is getting back into strong momentum. A busy semester and plenty to celebrate!

Dr. Xu awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award to advance research in energy-efficient AI hardware and integrated education initiatives. Read more on the RIT news release. 

Dr. Xu received the RIT College of Science Excellence in Teaching Award

Dr. Xu, Dr. Lanata, and Dr. Das meet with incoming Physics PhD students

Nithil presented his recent work at the 2025 MRS Fall Meeting. He shared our team’s progress on energy-efficient, physics-based AI processing using 2D electric double-layer transistors for edge computing, and he even opened with a Mission Impossible photo to keep the audience smiling while talking about device physics. Great job, Nithil!

We also had a chance to unwind and chat science over seafood with Dr. Seth Hubbard and his student, Julia Spaziani

Dr. Xu gives an invited talk at IEEE NANO 2025

Congratulations to Josh on the successful defense of his M.S. thesis!

Dr. Xu receives the RIT College of Science Student Mentoring Award

Conference week! Dr. Xu and Han presents at the 34th IEEE Microelectronics Design and Test Symposium

Nithil, Jimmy, and Han presents at the 12th Graphene and Beyond: From Atoms to Applications Workshop

We wrapped up Spring 2025 with good food and good vibes, celebrating a semester of great progress, new papers, and awesome teamwork. And keeping our tradition of ending each term with a new cuisine (still no repeats!)

Congratulations to Steve for being named a School of Physics and Astronomy Research Scholar for the graduating class of 2025!

Congrats to Jacob on our new paper in Electronics, exploring what it takes to reliably observe cross quantum capacitance in electric-double-layer-gated transistors based on 2D materials. A lot of subtle details come into play and this work helps make sense of them.

Congrats to Nithil and our collaborators from UPitt, Michigan, Penn State, and UNT! Our new Nano Letters paper is the first to show a permanent dipole in a 2D metal—and the first to make it tunable with a gate. Theory predicted it, but now it’s real!

The group celebrate the end of 2024 and Wyatt’s successful defense of his MS thesis!

Wyatt is starting at Micron Technology as a Process Development Engineer. Congratulations and best wishes for this exciting new chapter, Wyatt!

Xu Group is part of the RIT team that received awards from the NSF to advance research in cutting-edge semiconductor technologies. Research will focus on next-generation CMOS+X (X = AI, biomedical, chemical, optoelectronic, photonic, nanoelectronic, quantum, and packaging) technologies.

Read the RIT news: NSF awards RIT nearly $3 million to advance semiconductor technologies