News & Events

BSAC Researcher Seminar: Ionocraft: Flying Microrobots With No Moving Parts

September 11, 2018
Daniel Drew Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Graduate Researcher, Kris Pister Group September 11, 2018 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall Host: Michael Cable

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force was noted as early as 1709 and investigated by great minds like Benjamin Franklin, Faraday, and Maxwell. The presentation will focus on research developing novel EHD actuators using MEMS microfabrication techniques and investigations into miniaturization and scaling of EHD thrusters. Robotic platforms enabled by EHD thrusters...

BSAC Researcher Seminar: Direct Frequency-to-Digital Gyroscopes with Low Drift and High Accuracy

November 13, 2018
Dr. Burak Eminoglu Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher, Bernhard Boser Group November 13, 2018 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall Host: Michael Cable

MEMS gyroscopes have been used for a variety of applications including gaming and image stabilization. Long term stability of commercial MEMS gyroscopes remains a hindrance to meeting navigation requirements. In order to meet these requirements, a new solution is needed to improve long term stability without inordinate size, cost, and...

BSAC Technology Seminar: Ultra-Low Power and Scalable Programmable Silicon Photonic MEMS

May 20, 2022
Tuesday, 20 May 2022 at 11 am | 521 Cory Hall

Professor Sangyoon Han Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering | Intelligent Nanophotonics Laboratory Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) Host: Professor Ming Wu
...

BSAC Researcher Seminar: High-Q Strong Coupling Capacitive-Gap Transduced RF Micromechanical Resonators

December 3, 2019
Alper Ozgurluk Alper Ozgurluk Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley December 3, 2019 | 2:00 to 3:00 | 490 Cory Hall Host: Prof. Clark T.-C. Nguyen Dissertation Presentation

Single-digit-nanometer electrode-to-resonator gaps have enabled 200-MHz radial-contour mode polysilicon disk resonators with motional resistance Rx as low as 144Ohm...

BSAC Researcher Seminar: Chip-Scale Fluorescence Imager for In Vivo Microscopic Cancer Detection

November 14, 2017
Efthymois Phillip Papageorgiou Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Graduate Researcher, Bernhard Boser Group November 14, 2017 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall Host: Michael Cable

Modern cancer treatment faces the pervasive challenge of identifying microscopic cancer foci in vivo, but no imaging device exists with the ability to identify these cells intraoperatively, where they can be removed. The removal of these foci is known to more than halve cancer recurrence rates across a wide variety of cancers, including...

Lin Lab: With a Damp TV, Berkeley Engineers Demonstrate the Potential of a Green Energy Harvester

September 6, 2021
William Schulz

Watching television in the shower might not rank terribly high on the scale of today’s available personal-tech indulgences. But imagine if the TV — or other small electronic device — was powered by water vapor billowing up from the marble floor tiles.

Such moisture-induced energy harvesting is what UC Berkeley researchers, led by mechanical engineering professor Liwei Lin, report in a study published today in Nature Communications They say it is a potential new source of green energy, particularly in...

Lin Lab: Slicing the Way to Wearable Sensor Prototypes

February 11, 2022
Alan S. Brown

Engineers at UC Berkeley have developed a new technique for making wearable sensors that enables medical researchers to prototype test new designs much faster and at a far lower cost than existing methods.

The new technique replaces photolithography — a multistep process used to make computer chips in clean rooms — with a $200 vinyl cutter. The novel approach slashes the time to make small batches of sensors by nearly 90% while cutting costs by almost 75%, said Renxiao Xu (Ph.D.’20 ME), who developed the...

BSAC Researcher Seminar: The Birth of BSAC and the March of MEMS

June 13, 2017
Prof. Richard S. Muller BSAC Co-Founder June 13, 2017 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall Host: Michael Cable

Inspired by success creating the first microelectromechanical systems using the processes and materials developed in the progress of integrated circuits, in 1986 Prof. Muller and Prof. Richard White founded the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC) with the mission to conceive, design, and build integrated...

BSAC Seminar: Silicon-Based Integrated Sensors and Systems with On-Chip Antennas From Picosecond Pulse Radiators to Miniaturized Spectrometers

April 15, 2017
Prof. Aydin Babakhani Rice University, Directory of Rice Integrated Systems and Circuits Lab (RISC), Louis Owen Junior Chair Assistant Professor of ECE April 25, 2017 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall Host: Bernhard Boser

Today's silicon process technology makes it possible to integrate everything from antennas to processors on a single chip at almost no cost. This creates new opportunities for implementing complex sensors and systems on a millimeter scale. To create such devices, an understanding of physics, waves, electromagnetics,...

BSAC Seminar: A Novel Approach for High Efficient Electrostatic Micro/Nano Transducers

February 7, 2017
Dr. Harald Schenk Director, Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems Professor of Micro- and Nanosystems, Brandenburg University of Technology February 7, 2017 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 490 Cory Hall Host: Michael Cable

Electrostatic forces provide excellent scaling behavior that makes them first choice for micro and nano actuation. However, large stroke is at cost of large electrode gaps preventing to make use of this advantage. As a consequence, other driving mechanisms like piezoelectricity or electromagnetism are applied - although...