Frontiers in device engineering: synthesis for nonintuitive design

Today, nano-science provides an overwhelmingly large number of experimentally accessible ways to configure the spatial position of atoms, molecules, and other nanoscale components to form devices. The challenge is to find the best, most practical, configuration that yields a useful device function. In the presence of what will typically be an enormous non-convex search space, it is reasonable to assume that traditional ad-hoc design methods will miss many possible solutions. One approach to solving this difficult problem is to employ machine-based searches of configuration space that discover user-defined objective functions. Such an optimal design methodology aims to identify the best brokensymmetry spatial configuration of metal, semiconductor, and dielectric that produce a desired response. Hence, by harnessing a combination of modern compute power, adaptive algorithms, and realistic physical models, it should be possible to seek robust, manufacturable designs that meet previously unobtainable system specifications. Ultimately one can envision a methodology that simultaneously is capable of basic scientific discovery and engineering for technological applications.