Prof. Donhee Ham

Extracellular microelectrode arrays (MEAs) have been a central tool in neuroscience, offering the ability to record from large populations of neurons over extended timescales. They have provided invaluable insights into, and important information about, network dynamics and will remain an essential tool in neuroscience. Intracellular recording by patch-clamp electrodes, on the other hand, reveals more delicate details of single-cell physiology, but typically at the sacrifice of scale. The field has therefore faced a trade-off: scale or detail.

Our new intracellular microelectrode array (iMEA) is designed to complement and extend the MEA framework by bridging the divide between scale and detail. By massively parallelizing intracellular access, the iMEA combines the detail of intracellular recording with the population-level reach pioneered by extracellular MEAs, opening opportunities for large-scale intracellular neuroscience.

Already, the iMEA has mapped over 70,000 plausible synaptic connections from over 2,000 cultured rat neurons. In this talk, I will share how this technology extends MEAs into the intracellular domain, enabling detailed studies of population neural dynamics and functional synaptic cartography.

About Prof. Donhee Ham

Professor Donhee Ham is John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He was also a Samsung Fellow from 2019 to 2024 and served as Deputy Head of Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Samsung Electronics in 2024. Research website: https://donheehamlab.org, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster. His current research is on CMOS-bio interface, machine intelligence, integrated circuits, and beyond-CMOS electronics.   

Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2026
Time: 10:00-12:00
Venue: Karlsplatz 13 – Seminarraum  AA 03 - 1, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster

Places are limited. Register here.

Prof. Hari Srikanth

Spin–heat coupling is at the heart of spin-caloritronics, an emerging field that explores how temperature gradients can generate, manipulate, and detect spin currents in magnetic materials and heterostructures. Beyond its fundamental interest, this interplay between heat and spin offers new pathways for low-power information processing and waste-heat energy harvesting in a world increasingly dominated by data- and AI-driven technologies. Magnetic materials offer unique pathways for converting energy between thermal, magnetic, and electronic forms. I will begin with a brief introduction to magnetic hyperthermia, where heat generated by nanoparticles in alternating magnetic fields is used for biomedical therapies. This nanoscale heating arises from relaxation dynamics, magnetic anisotropy, and size distribution effects, and illustrates how magnetic systems dissipate energy under driven conditions.

The second larger part of the talk will focus on the broader and rapidly developing field of spin caloritronics, which explores how temperature gradients can generate and manipulate spin currents. These spin–heat coupling phenomena—including the spin Seebeck and anomalous Nernst effects—provide new routes for energy harvesting, waste-heat utilization, and low-power spin transport. I will discuss how quantum materials and engineered magnetic heterostructures, such as garnets, Heusler compounds, topological materials, and high entropy alloys, offer versatile platforms to study and control these effects. 

By connecting nanoscale hyperthermia to macroscale spin–heat conversion, the talk will show how manipulating heat and spin—across length scales and across material platforms—opens exciting opportunities for sensing, energy conversion, and next-generation spin-based technologies.

About Prof. Hari Srikanth

Professor Hari Srikanth is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics from the Indian Institute of Science,  Bangalore and has been at USF since 2000 where he leads the Functional Materials Laboratory. He is also the Director of Florida Institute of Emergent Low-Dimensional Quantum Materials (FIELD-QM). Hari’s research spans a wide range of topics like quantum materials, magnetic materials and nanoscience. Hari has over 325 journal publications (with 13,400+ citations and an h-index of 66) and has given over 225 invited talks around the world. In 2019, he was an IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturer. 

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Senior Member of IEEE. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Physical Review B. Hari has been closely involved with the MMM and INTERMAG conferences for over 20 years serving as Publication Editor, Publication Chair and on program committees. He was the Special Events Chair for the MMM 2025 in Palm Beach, FL and also serves on the IEEE Magnetics Society AdCom. Hari is a recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award and a Fulbright Scholar Award and holds visiting professorships at University of Duisburg Essen in Germany, IIT Bombay and IISc Bangalore in India.

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 10:30-12:00
Venue: Freihaus Building, Wiedner Hauptstraße 8 -10, Hörsaal 3 - MATH (DB02O13, öffnet eine externe URL in einem neuen Fenster - Tower B, Yellow Area, 2nd Floor)
This lecture will also be broadcast via video.

Places are limited. Register here.

Prof. Dr. Wilfred van der Wiel

Throughout history, humans have harnessed matter to perform tasks beyond their biological limits. Initially, tools relied solely on shape and structure for functionality. We progressed to responsive matter that reacts to external stimuli and are now challenged by adaptive matter, which could alter its response based on environmental conditions. A major scientific goal is creating matter that can learn, where behavior depends on both the present and its history. This matter would have long-term memory, enabling autonomous interaction with its environment and self-regulation of actions. We may call such matter ‘intelligent.’

In this lecture, we introduce a number of experiments towards ‘intelligent’ disordered nanomaterial systems, where we make use of “material learning” to realize functionality. We have earlier shown that a ‘designless’ network of gold nanoparticles can be configured into Boolean logic gates using artificial evolution. We later demonstrated that this principle is generic and can be transferred to other material systems. By exploiting the nonlinearity of a nanoscale network of dopants in silicon, referred to as a dopant network processing unit (DNPU), we can significantly facilitate handwritten digit classification. 

An alternative material-learning approach is followed by first mapping our DNPU on a deep-neural-network model, which allows for applying standard machine-learning techniques in finding functionality. We also can optimize DNPUs by using gradient descent in materials, using experimental gradient extraction. Finally, we show that our devices are not only suitable for solving static problems but can also be applied in highly efficient real-time processing of temporal signals at room temperature.

About Prof. Dr. Wilfred van der Wiel

Professor Wilfred van der Wiel is a distinguished physicist and full professor of nanoelectronics at the University of Twente. He is also the director of BRAINS, the Center for Brain-Inspired Computing. He holds a second professorship at the Institute of Physics at the University of Münster, Germany. His research focuses on unconventional computing paradigms, including hardware implementations of neuromorphic and quantum information processing, as well as materials for in-materio computing.

Prof. van der Wiel has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles and has received several prestigious research grants, including from the European Research Council (ERC) and funding from the Dutch Science Council. He is widely recognized for his interdisciplinary approach, which bridges physics, materials science, computer science, and biology to explore new frontiers in information processing. He frequently speaks at international conferences and actively contributes to EU-funded research and innovation networks.