A*STAR MTC Programmatic Fund – Professor Liu Zheng

We are pleased to announce that Professor Liu Zheng and his team have been awarded the A*STAR RIE2025 Manufacturing, Trade and Connectivity (MTC) Programmatic Fund for the research programme titled "Van der Waals Engineering for All-optical Neuromorphic Chip". Prof Liu leads a multidisciplinary team comprised of Team-PIs from School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE, NTU) and Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), A*STAR.

This program aims to advance the field of neuromorphic computing by developing a platform technology for large-area van der Waals (VdW) materials with enhanced properties. The goal is to create a non-volatile photonic memristor for low-power synaptic weighting, a self-powered photodetector, and novel array architectures for scalable weight programming. The ultimate objective is to demonstrate a prototype of an all-optical neuromorphic computing chip based on Si₃N₄ waveguides, exhibiting ultra-low latency, high energy efficiency, and rapid computing speed. The success of this program is expected to position Singapore as a leading player in next-generation neuromorphic computing technologies, with potential applications in recommendation systems and optimization problems.