Physical Sensors & Devices

Research that includes:

  • Silicon MEMS actuators: comb, electro-thermal, and plastic deformation
  • Precision electronic sensing and measurements of capacitive, frequency, and coulombic MEMS variables
  • Structures and architectures for gyroscopes, accelerometers, micro strain gauges for direct application to rigid structures e.g., steel, and levitated MEMS

BPNX1035: Six-Axis Control of Electrostatically Levitated Mass

Yichen Liu
Daniel Lovell
Emily Tan
Alexander Alvara
Hani Gomez
Daniel Teal
2025

This project focuses on the design, fabrication, and development of a six-axis electrostatically levitated mass system. While electrostatic levitation has been previously demonstrated, the emphasis here is on achieving a compact form factor (10 cm × 10 cm), reduced power consumption (0.5 W), and increased levitated mass capacity. The proof mass is suspended using a system of actuation electrodes: four top electrodes provide levitation and control of vertical displacement (z-axis) as well as rotation about the x- and y-axes, while six side electrodes control lateral motion (x- and y-...

BPNX1027: Electronic-Photonic Ultrasound Receiver Array for Endoscopic Applications

Sarika Madhvapathy
Ali M. Niknejad
Vladimir Stojanović
2025

Endoscopic ultrasound imaging systems require compact, low-power probes with a dense array of sensing elements. At the same time, the cabling inside the probe tube that interfaces with the external processing unit should be minimal. State-of-the-art ultrasound imagers that utilize CMUTs and PMUTs require integrating each transducer’s power-hungry analog frontend on probe, making it more difficult to satisfy the safe power limit. To address this, we propose the use of silicon microring resonators (MRRs) as ultrasound sensors. Their small element size (10-20 μm in diameter) allows us to...

BPN955: AI-Powered Life-Science Monitoring Platforms

Nikita Lukhanin
Keming Bai
Kang Wang
Declan M. Fitzgerald
Kamyar Behrouzi
2025

Access to affordable and user-friendly health-science monitoring platforms are crucial for advancing global healthcare. While lateral flow immunoassays have been the primary solution for decades, their limited sensitivity and suboptimal sample utilization present challenges. This project represents a systematic progression towards developing economically viable sensors with heightened sensitivity, applicable to both disease diagnostics and the detection of environmental contaminants. By integrating nanoplasmonics to induce visually perceptible signals and harnessing the coffee ring effect...

BPN973: Piezoresistive Cement Paste for Structural Health Monitoring

Stuart McElhany
Anushree Konwar
Hung Vo
2025

Concrete is the most widely used engineered material in the world and finds use in nearly every aspect of civil infrastructure. Safety concerns posed by the aging of infrastructure combined with the prevalence of concrete in these systems highlights the demand for a concrete-composite capable of structural health monitoring (SHM) while being low-cost and easily implementable. Embedment of electrically conductive forms of carbon such as graphitic fibers and nanotubes allow for concrete and other cementitious composites to act as self-sensors capable of SHM through a...

BPNX1050: In Situ Harsh Environment Testing of Electrical Stiffness-Based Sensors

Neil Chen
Xintian Liu
Kevin H. Zheng
2025

This project aims to conduct in situ experimental measurements under conditions that closely mimic realistic harsh environments to evaluate the efficacy of electrical stiffness-based sensors in practical product scenarios.

Project is currently funded by: Industry Sponsored Research

BPNX1048: HelioSwarm - Hardware for the Electron Electrostatic Spectrograph

Amanda Jung
Phyllis Whittlesey
2025

The HelioSwarm mission aims to characterize plasma turbulence, a fundamental process affecting space weather and cosmic phenomena, including interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and corotating interaction regions (CIRs) from the sun. These characterizations will be driven by nine spacecraft—one central hub and eight smaller nodes—for multi-scale, multi-point measurements of solar wind and interplanetary magnetic fields. The Electron Electrostatic Spectrograph will be located on the hub and it is the only direct electron measurement tool in the swarm. This project requires the...

BPN941: Ultrasound-Induced Human-Machine Interface

Declan M. Fitzgerald
Huicong Deng
Umut Can Yener
Fan Xia
Wei Yue
2025

As smart devices dominate larger areas of day-to-day life, their ability to communicate with human users must improve. While skin is the largest organ in the human body, relatively few efforts have gone toward developing more adaptive ways to utilize the "sense of touch" compared to visual and auditory signaling. The mechanical stimulus to generate a sense of touch by the embedded mechanoreceptors in the skin at different depths has been created in previous ways via vibratory actuators, requiring bulky and specialized offset masses and motors. In this project, we are investigating the...

BPNX1052: Piezoelectric MEMS Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits (New Project)

Huicong Deng
Arkadev Roy
Sirui Tang
Daniel Klawson
Yiyang Zhi
Liwei Lin
2025

Integrated silicon photonic switches are extensively used in modern compute infrastructure, serving as fundamental building blocks for high-speed data communication and computing in large-scale data centers. Our group has previously developed MEMS-based photonic switches that achieve large-scale integration, high bandwidth, and low optical loss. However, their operation is limited by the high driving voltages inherent to electrostatic MEMS actuation.

In this project, we aim to develop piezoelectric MEMS-based programmable integrated circuits for optical signal routing and on-chip...

BPNX1004: Low Noise Electrochemical Aptamer-Based Sensing Device

Ya-Chen (Justine) Tsai
2025

The Electrochemical Aptamer-based (E-AB) sensors provide continuous and real-time monitoring of specific target molecules, including proteins, antibiotics, neurotransmitters, and more. Due to the cost-effectiveness compared to enzyme sensing assays, E-AB platforms hold significant promise for point-of-care devices and precision medicine. However, sensitivity remains a challenge, particularly in the complicated environment, such as blood and serum. While research has achieved a noise level in the picoampere range, enhancing sensitivity is crucial for detecting trace amounts of certain...

Jun-Chau Chien

Professor
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC)

Jun-Chau Chien is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Co-Director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC). His research focuses on analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits, bioelectronics, and RF/mmWave high-speed ICs. He is also interested in biosensor designs, molecular engineering, and techniques to couple semiconductor technologies with advanced biotechnologies for new platform development.

Prior to joining BSAC, Professor Chien was an Assistant Professor at National...