Toward chip-scale RF front ends Professor Songbin Gong ( right ) and members of his Illinois Integrated RF Microsystems Group are developing chip-scale hybrid microsystems for RF communication , sensing , and imaging applications .
Light illuminates the way for bio-bots
Toward chip-scale RF front ends Professor Songbin Gong ( right ) and members of his Illinois Integrated RF Microsystems Group are developing chip-scale hybrid microsystems for RF communication , sensing , and imaging applications .
The recent proliferation of wireless devices like cell phones , smart radios , and Internet of Things sensors are putting a strain on the limited radio frequency ( RF ) spectrum . Researchers like ECE Professor Songbin Gong and his students are working on the underlying front-end wireless technology that can help alleviate that strain . In 2016 , they developed a spurious mode-suppression technique that they used to make a new class of front-end device — lithium niobate ( LiNbO 3
) laterally vibrating resonators . The team integrated 200 of these resonators in a ladder network on a 360 x 350 µ m 2 chip that operated at 750 and 400 MHz simultaneously .
Source : IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices , “ Analysis and removal of spurious response in SHO Lithium Niobate MEMS resonators ,” volume 63 , May 2016 .
Light illuminates the way for bio-bots
Bioengineering Professor Rashid Bashir and his students demonstrated a new class of miniature biological robots that have been genetically engineered to respond to light , giving researchers control over the bots ’ motion , a key step toward their use in applications for health , sensing and the environment . Bashir ’ s group previously demonstrated bio-bots that were activated with an electrical field , but electricity can cause adverse side effects to a biological environment and has steering limitations . The new light-stimulation technique is less invasive and allows the researchers to steer the bio-bots in different directions . The bio-bots are made of rings of mouse muscle tissue that have a gene added so the tissue contracts when exposed to light . These rings are like building blocks that can be combined with any 3-D-printed skeleton to make bio-bots for a variety of applications . This work was part of the NSF-funded Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems project . Source : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , “ Optogenetic skeletal muscle-powered adaptive biological machines ,” volume 113 , March 2016 .
The bio-bots research team includes ( left to right ) Research Professor Parijat Sengupta , graduate student Caroline Cvetkovic , Professor Rashid Bashir , and graduate student Ritu Raman .
micro + nanotechnology lab | 9 | 2016 highlights report