BSAC Co-Director Xiaoyu (Rayne) Zheng is the recipient of the 2025 AIC Catalyst Award for his lab's work Desktop Electronics Projection Lithography
Advances in electronics are increasingly moving beyond flat circuits toward fully three-dimensional systems, including curved electronics, embedded electrodes, quantum chips and neural interfaces. However, most manufacturing techniques remain rooted in costly, planar processes such as photolithography, which require cleanroom facilities, multiple materials and long fabrication times. Existing alternatives are often too slow or inflexible to support rapid prototyping or custom geometries.
This project introduces Desktop Electronics Projection Lithography (DEPL), a rapid, single-step fabrication method for producing fully 3D electronic structures. DEPL uses optical patterning and charge-programmed photoresists to precisely control where conductive and insulating regions form, allowing metals to deposit only where needed, without material switching. The approach achieves sub-100-nanometer conductive resolution while dramatically reducing time and cost.
The team will refine DEPL materials, build prototype devices and develop commercialization pathways for applications including robotic sensors, haptic interfaces, antennas and embedded interconnects. The result is a scalable platform that brings complex 3D electronics closer to practical, real-world manufacturing.
The AIC Catalyst Award is made possible with support from the Academic Innovation Catalyst. This program aims to transform faculty-developed research into viable commercial solutions for some of society’s most critical concerns. Each awardee receives up to $200,000 over two years and access to the CITRIS Foundry incubator to help move their work from the laboratory to the market.
Adapted from UCB College of Computing, Data Science, and Society News: Link to Source