Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister

Pister Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

BPN985: Multimaterial Nanoscale 3D Printing

Daniel Teal
2024

We propose a new multimaterial direct-write printing technique with projected sub-micron resolution. Inorganic nanoparticles (≈1-10nm) of common microfabrication materials are electrically charged, manipulated electromagnetically in vacuum with an ion trap, and shot toward a substrate where they deposit onto a part under construction, similar to PVD methods. To date, we have successfully demonstrated basic multimaterial deposition. Eventually, this ion printing technology could allow rapid prototyping of integrated circuits and MEMS.

Project ended: 12/20/2024

Carson Spoo

Undergraduate Researcher
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
B.S. 2026 (Anticipated)

BPN990: Anti-Drone Radar-Guided Micromissiles

Titan Yuan
Daniel Lovell
Carson Spoo
Cedric Murphy
Jenna Dickman
Asa Garner
Eric Yang
2025

Since drones can be flown remotely or autonomously and can navigate dangerous environments without any risk to human operators, they are attractive for military applications, including surveillance, reconnaissance, and combat missions. At the same time, enemy drones pose a growing serious threat to civilians and soldiers. Current anti-drone warfare is either inaccurate, expensive, or large in size, so this project aims to build a low-cost, crayon-sized radar-guided microrocket to target drones up to 100 m away.

Project currently funded by: Membership Fees

Titan Yuan

Graduate Student Researcher
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2027 (Anticipated)

Titan received his B.S. and M.S. in EECS from UC Berkeley in 2019 and 2020, respectively, advised by Prof. Kris Pister. After graduating, he spent two years in industry working on radar embedded software and signal processing for autonomous vehicles. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in EECS, also advised by Prof. Kris Pister, with an interest in wireless sensor networks, RFICs, and RF/wireless sensing.

Hani Gomez

Postdoctoral Researcher
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2020, PostDoc 2024 to present

Originally from Cochabamba, Bolivia, Hani obtained her BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. In 2020, Hani graduated with a PhD from UC Berkeley, where she focused on the design, fabrication and assembly of walking silicon microrobots using MEMS technology. Now, she is once again working with Kristofer Pister, developing a six-axis controlled, electrostatically levitated 1g mass system.

Alexander Alvara

Graduate Student Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Liwei Lin (Advisor)
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2025 (Anticipated)

Alexander Alvara is a final year Ph.D. Candidate in mechanical engineering who earned his 3 BS degrees from UC Irvine '17 concurrently in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, and materials science and engineering. Alexander is interested in extreme conditions applications and performance of MEMS devices as well as nanoscale materials engineering that investigates the interplay of materials with electromagnetism and light.

Rotary Inchworm Motor for Underwater Microrobot Propulsion

Mauricio J. Bustamante
Michel M. Maharbiz
Kristofer S. J. Pister
2024

Swimming microrobots have significant potential for biomedical applications and distributed sensing. To date, most work has relied on external fields for control control. To achieve au- tonomy, locally controllable propulsion mechanisms must be developed. This thesis presents an rotary inchworm motor designed to drive an artificial flagellum, inspired by bacterial flagellar motors found in nature. The design adapts electrostatic gap closing actuators with angled arms for rotational motion. The devices are fabricated in an SOI process with a bonded lid featuring through-wafer vias as a...

Multimaterial Nanoscale Printing via Charged Nanoparticle Deposition

Daniel Teal
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2024

Microfabrication, the set of manufacturing techniques used to make computer chips, displays, MEMS, and other devices, is famously difficult, slow, and capital equipment heavy. In this dissertation we propose a much simpler path toward rapid prototyping of microfabricated devices by deposition of nanoparticles in vacuum.

We will discuss generation of nanoparticles of standard microfabrication materials such as metals, oxides, and semiconductors, as well as methods to manipulate these as aerosols in low-pressure gas, culminating in a demonstration of multimaterial printing. We will...

Daniel Lovell

Graduate Student Researcher
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Kristofer S.J. Pister (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2028 (Anticipated)

Daniel Lovell attended the University of North Georgia and the U.S. Naval Academy before a hiatus to pursue research in industry. During this time, he worked on software and systems for optoelectronics, and developed new applications for optical MEMS in programmable light systems, MEMS mirror-based lidar, robot vision, and human-robot-interaction.

Daniel received his B.A. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in 2022. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in EECS there, with a focus on integrated circuit design.

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Alexander Alvara Awarded the 2021 Space Science Lab's Lin Fellowship

July 16, 2021

Please join BSAC in congratulating Alexander Alvara of the Pister group on being awarded the 2021 Space Science Lab's Lin Fellowship.

Alexander is a doctoral student in the Berkeley mechanical engineering department working with Dr. Andrew J. Westphal and the Berkeley Autonomous Microsystems (BAM) Laboratory on the study of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets and is working on new low-cost methods for image and sample retrieval. He is designing, developing, and manufacturing...