Abstract
Natural and artificial intelligence are defined by wiring diagrams (“connectomes”) for circuits implemented using proteins and silicon respectively. Remarkably, both biology and silicon chip fabrication are more advanced in their capacity to define the platforms for intelligence than is the technology for imaging the outcomes. Conventional high-resolution microscopy for imaging the interior of three-dimensional objects typically entails destructive sample preparation followed by electron microscopy of resulting surfaces or sections. Here we describe X-ray ptychography, a mixed real space/reciprocal space (“wavelet“) technique, which is non-destructive and provides three-dimensional images at steadily improving resolution, now reaching 4 nanometers for “hard” matter. We show applications to integrated circuit inspection and brain science.
Biography
Gabriel Aeppli is professor of physics at ETH Zürich and EPF Lausanne, and head of the Center for Photon Science and Deputy Director of the Paul Scherrer Institute. His degrees are from MIT and include a BSc in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, and MSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering. He started as a work-study student at IBM and after his PhD moved to Bell Laboratories and then NEC. During more than two decades in industry, he worked on topics from liquid crystals to magnetic data storage and quantum technologies. He was subsequently co-founder and director of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Quain Professor at University College London, and also cofounded the AquAffirm company. Honours include the Mott Prize of the Institute of Physics (London), the Oliver Buckley prize of the American Physical Society, the Néel Medal/International Magnetism Prize of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and election to the US Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and Royal Society (London).
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.