Bend it like Wu
11/01/13 — Materials science and engineering professor Junqiao Wu and Berkeley Lab colleagues have created a microscale actuator that's smaller than the width of a human hair and can bend like a finger.
Nanotechnology
Berkeley to house NSF-funded nanoscale microscope
09/20/13 QB3 — Researchers using a new tool in QB3-Berkeley's Biomolecular Nanotechnology Center will investigate matter on an unprecedented scale, thanks to a $2 million NSF grant for the purchase and installation of a new ORION Nanofab microscope.
Berkeley and Stanford launch nanofabrication partnership with TSI Semiconductors
08/15/13 — The College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley announced that its Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory, along with Stanford University's Nanofabrication Facility, has initiated a virtual technology transfer exercise with TSI Semiconductors, LLC, a specialty foundry offering flexible technology development and advanced manufacturing solutions for projects ranging from the smallest to very large lot sizes.
Researchers propose ‘neural dust’ to monitor brain from inside
07/17/13 ExtremeTech — Berkeley Engineering researchers have proposed a network of tiny implantable sensors that could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. This long-lasting "neural dust," envisioned by graduate student Dongjin Seo and colleagues in EECS, would solve the problems of size and invasiveness posed by current brain imaging technologies.
Precious cargo
11/01/12 — Researcher Ting Xu's new nanocarrier delivers drugs directly to tumors, then disassembles to safely leave the body.
Self-assembling nanorods: Berkeley researchers obtain 1, 2 and 3D nanorod arrays and networks
02/01/12 Berkeley Lab — A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers. Leading this project was Ting Xu, a polymer scientist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley's Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemistry.
Driving toward millivolt electronics
12/01/11 EDN — Thanks to new behaviors and the characteristics of materials at small geometries, nanotechnology has the potential to introduce great change to the electronics arena. UC Berkeley's Center for E3S (Energy Efficient Electronics Science) is working to develop fundamental devices that will result in a millionfold reduction in power for future generations of electronic systems. EECS professor Eli Yablonovitch leads the research group, which focuses on nanoelectronics, nanomechanics, nanophotonics, nanomagnetics, and system integration.
Tracking the mighty microbe
08/18/11 — Jillian Banfield studies very, very small things, but her work is vast in its scope and impact. So vast, in fact, that her discoveries have implications for space, the human body and nearly everything in between. Banfield, a biogeochemist, geomicrobiologist and professor of materials science and engineering, studies microbes-their function and potential both individually and in groups. “Microorganisms are essentially everywhere,” says Banfield, “and they carry out all the really essential transformations that drive earth's biogeochemical cycles.”
Building the bio toolkit
05/04/11 — In the 1970s, the Berkeley-bred SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) revolutionized microelectronics by creating a toolkit now used worldwide as the standard for circuit design. Our new Synthetic Biology Institute (SBI), launched on April 25, aims to repeat this feat with biological and chemical engineering.
The laser whisperer
03/02/11 — A research team led by Xiang Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering and faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, has taken inspiration from the phenomena of whispering galleries - such as the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall or Grand Central Terminal in New York - and their remarkable acoustical features to achieve a major scientific breakthrough in the use of plasmon lasers. By creating a technique to bounce surface plasmons inside of a nanosquare device, much in the way sound waves reflect back and forth in a whispering gallery, the team was able to operate plasmon lasers at room temperature, overcoming what had been a major barrier to practical utilization of the technology.
Laser-quick data transfer
02/14/11 Technology Review — Researchers have learned how to make lasers directly on microchips. The result could be computers that download large files much more quickly. Connie Chang-Hasnain, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, has overcome the incompatibility between silicon and laser materials by taking advantage of the properties of nanostructures and by carefully controlling the growth process.
Berkeley scientists create more efficient photocatalyst for use in clean technologies
01/29/11 AZoM — A little disorder goes a long way, especially when it comes to harnessing the sun's energy. Scientists from Berkeley Lab jumbled the atomic structure of the surface layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, creating a catalyst that is both long lasting and more efficient than all other materials in using the sun's energy to extract hydrogen from water. "We are trying to find better ways to generate hydrogen from water using sunshine," says Samuel Mao, a mechanical engineering professor and scientist in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division who led the research.
Hotspots tamed by BEAST: Secrets of mysterious metal hotspots uncovered by new single molecule imaging technique
01/19/11 Berkeley Lab — The secrets behind the mysterious nano-sized electromagnetic "hotspots" that appear on metal surfaces under a light are finally being revealed with the help of a BEAST. Using the Brownian Emitter Adsorption Super-resolution Technique (BEAST), "we were able to map the electromagnetic field profile within a single hotspot as small as 15 nanometers with an accuracy down to 1.2 nanometers, in just a few minutes," says Xiang Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chaired Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley.
Ultrathin alternative to silicon for future electronics
11/24/10 US News & World Report — There's good news in the search for the next generation of semiconductors. Researchers at UC Berkeley have successfully created a nanoscale transistor with excellent electronic properties. Led by Berkeley Engineering professor Ali Javey, they have successfully integrated ultra-thin layers of the semiconductor indium arsenide onto a silicon substrate to create a nanoscale transistor that offers several advantages as an alternative to silicon including superior electron mobility and velocity, which makes it an outstanding candidate for future high-speed, low-power electronic devices.
She paints for power
10/05/10 — What will power our next-generation gizmos? The microdevices, nanodevices and picodevices of the future? Our prediction: the Christine Ho battery. As an MSE graduate student, Ho (B.S.'05, M.S.'07, Ph.D.'10 MSE) developed a novel microbattery technology that promises to not only power the smallest of smart devices but also accelerate a variety of energy applications, from better home energy monitoring systems to large-scale energy storage solutions for wind and solar farms.
Nanoscientist with big aspirations
08/09/10 — Artificial skin that bestows the sense of touch on prosthetic limbs. Nanochips that control the latest smart phones and devices. Sheets of low cost solar cells as easy to install as unrolling a carpet. All future scenarios, yes, but ones that EECS associate professor Ali Javey is working to realize in the next decade or so. Javey, a chemist by training, develops new electronic materials and methods of processing existing materials destined for future applications.
Nanosized light mill drives micro-sized disk
07/05/10 Berkeley Lab — Engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley have created the first nanosized light mill motor whose rotational speed and direction can be controlled by tuning the frequency of the incident light waves. This new light mill opens the door to a broad range of valuable applications, including a new generation of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), nanoscale solar light harvesters, and bots that can perform in vivo manipulations of DNA and other biological molecules.
Engineering health reform
04/07/10 — The health care reform bill enacted last month is the most far-reaching domestic policy the nation has seen in decades. Only time will tell us all the ramifications of this historic legislation. As the acting dean of the College of Engineering I ask, how can engineers help patients, physicians and providers make the best use of the changes ahead?
Grigoropoulos awarded continuation funding by DARPA
02/25/10 UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering Department — Continuation funding over the next three years, bringing the total to $5M, has been awarded by DARPA to Professor Costas Grigoropoulos of the Mechanical Engineering Department for research on "Nanofabrication by Tips coupled with Lasers."
Mother of invention
02/03/10 — Berkeley Engineering alumna Michelle Khine, now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at UC Irvine, has discovered an inventive scientific approach to fabricating cheap microfluidic devices using Shrinky Dinks. When her method of printing microfluidic patterns on Shrinky Dink sheets -- using a laser-jet printer, then heating them in a toaster oven to create patterns of channels and microwells -- was featured and published online in Lab Chip, it had more downloads in one month than any other paper previously posted by the UK's Royal Society of Chemistry.
