Sapir Bitton

Biographical Details

Sapir Bitton earned her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where she continued in the direct M.Sc.–Ph.D. track under the supervision of Prof. Nir Tessler. Her doctoral research focused on mixed ionic-electronic conduction in perovskite solar cells and organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs). She was the first to model halide ion migration and electrochemical reactions in perovskites and to demonstrate the impact of counterions on OECT performance. Bitton is a postdoctoral fellow at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where she is developing Electrochemical RAM (ECRAM) for analog in-memory neural network accelerators. Her work aims to reduce the energy and hardware demands of deep learning systems. She has been awarded the Fulbright-ISEF Fellowship, the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Fellowship, and the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Postdoctoral Award.

Research Interests

Sapir Bitton’s research explores how electronic and ionic conduction can be combined to design next-generation devices that deliver both high performance and energy efficiency.

Her doctoral work focused on understanding the interplay of ionic reactions in perovskite solar cells and organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), revealing critical mechanisms that impact stability and functionality. By using pioneering 2D electrochemical simulations, she demonstrated how mobile ions influence device operation.

Currently, as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, Bitton is exploring Electrochemical Random-Access Memory (ECRAM) devices for analog in-memory computing. Her research aims to transform the hardware landscape for deep learning by enabling neural network computations to be performed directly within memory. This approach eliminates the energy and speed bottlenecks associated with data movement between memory and processors. She is particularly interested in leveraging modeling and device physics to tailor ECRAM behavior for scalable, energy-efficient artificial intelligence systems. Driven by a strong environmental ethos, her work seeks to address the growing energy demands of data-centric technologies while opening new pathways for sustainable computing.

Select Publications

Bitton, S., & Tessler, N. (2023). Perovskite ionics – elucidating degradation mechanisms in perovskite solar cells via device modelling and iodine chemistry. Energy & Environmental Science, 16(6), 2621-2628. doi:10.1039/D3EE00881A

Bitton, S., & Tessler, N. (2024). Unveiling the Impact of the Electrolyte’s Counter Ions on Organic Electrochemical Transistor Performance. Advanced Electronic Materials, 10(6), 2300766. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/aelm.202300766

Bitton, S., & Tessler, N. (2021). Electron/hole blocking layers as ionic blocking layers in perovskite solar cells. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9(6), 1888-1894. doi:10.1039/D0TC04697C

Bitton, S., An, Q., Vaynzof, Y., & Tessler, N. (2021). Spatial Distribution of Solar Cell Parameters in Multigrain Halide-Perovskite Films: A Device Model Perspective. ACS Applied Energy Materials, 4(9), 8709-8714. doi:10.1021/acsaem.1c01415