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Nanofabrication Courses Let Caltech Undergraduates Get Hands-on at the Smallest Scales

05-27-22

The course combines topical lectures that give the students a preview of what they will be doing in the cleanroom along with hands-on practical training. Both components are conducted as a team effort between Scherer and the KNI technical staff. The first two lectures of the term were presented by KNI’s microscopist, Dr. Annalena Wolff, who lectured on scanning electron and focused ion beam microscopy. Additional lectures were presented by KNI’s Associate Director of Technical Operations, Dr. Guy DeRose, on electron beam lithography.

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Tags: APhMS EE research highlights MedE Axel Scherer KNI Changsoon Choi Paromita Mitchell Annalena Wolff Guy DeRose Bert Mendoza Alex Wertheim Kelly McKenzie

Smaller Chips May Depend on Vacuum Tube Technology

06-05-16

A recent New York Times article featured Caltech alumnus, Gordon Moore (PhD ’54), and the research of Professor Axel Scherer on ultrasmall vacuum tube as a candidate to replace the transistor. [Read the article]

Tags: APhMS EE research highlights CMS Gordon Moore Axel Scherer

Professor Scherer Elected to National Academy of Inventors

01-08-15

Axel Scherer, Bernard Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Physics, has been named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He has most recently developed ways to integrate optics, electronics, and fluidics into sensor systems. Much of his work is currently focused on systems for medical diagnosis and health monitoring through molecular pathology and wireless implants.  Election as an NAI fellow is an honor bestowed upon academic innovators and inventors who have "demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions and innovations that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society." [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS EE honors MedE Axel Scherer

Sensors to Simplify Diabetes Management

10-10-14

As part of their Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) projects, several engineering students have contributed to the development of tiny biosensors that could one day eliminate the need for manual blood sugar tests. The students were advised by Caltech medical engineering faculty Axel Scherer, and Hyuck Choo. [Caltech Release] [ENGenious MedE Feature]

Tags: APhMS EE MedE health Axel Scherer Hyuck Choo

Winners of the 2014 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes Announced

06-10-14

The student winners of the 2014 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at a special luncheon with the Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis family. Imran Malik received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with Axel Scherer on designing and demonstrating a sample-to-answer disease detection system based on a low-cost quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Faisal Amlani was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Oscar Bruno on the development of a new high-order methodology for seismic and elastic wave propagation with applications to earthquakes. This year there were two winners for the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prizes is in Nanotechnology. One winner was Bradley Lyon for his worked with Morteza Gharib on formulating the concept and fabricating the methods for creating carbon nanotube microneedles that delivered drugs painlessly to animals. The other winner of the Nanotechnology prize was Muhammad Mujeeb-U-Rahman who has worked with Axel Scherer on developing an inexpensive implantable and wireless continuous glucose monitor chip which is only 1mmx1mm size.

Tags: honors Morteza Gharib Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes Axel Scherer Oscar Bruno Imran Malik Faisal Amlani Bradley Lyon Muhammad Mujeeb-U-Rahman

From Lab-on-a-Chip to Lab-in-the-Body

11-04-13

Axel Scherer, Bernard Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics and Physics, will be giving the next Caltech Earnest C. Watson Lecture on November 6, 2013 at 8pm. His lecture is entitled From Lab-on-a-Chip to Lab-in-the-Body and will focus on the role of nanotechnology in the miniaturization of medical diagnostic tools. [Caltech Release] [ENGenious Article]

Tags: APhMS EE MedE health Axel Scherer

Senior Spotlight

05-31-13

Electrical Engineering Senior Raymond Jimenez was first introduced to Caltech as a high school student when he worked in the laboratory of Paul Bellan. As a Caltech undergraduate his favorite class was APh/EE 9, Solid-State Electronics for Integrated Circuits—a course then taught by Oskar Painter. He also worked on a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project with Axel Scherer, who describes Jimenez as "one of the most capable undergraduates whom I have had the pleasure of working with over my past 20 years at Caltech," adding that he has "extraordinary" abilities. "Raymond brought tremendous enthusiasm, talent, and insight to our neural probe project," Scherer says. "It was fun working with him on our research projects, and I think of him more as a scientific collaborator than as a student." Raymond and his peers will be honored at Caltech's 119th Commencement on June 14 at 10 a.m. [Caltech Spotlight]

Tags: APhMS EE research highlights Oskar Painter Paul Bellan Axel Scherer Raymond Jimenez

Disease Diagnosis at the Touch of a Button

02-25-13

Axel Scherer, Bernard Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics and Physics, and colleagues have built a new version of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device, which generates many copies of a pathogenic nucleic acid, allowing the infection to be detected. The device is the result of nearly 10 years of research at Caltech. In 2004, Scherer, a leader in the field of microfluidics, and George Maltezos were investigating how to manipulate biological fluids on a chip. While this was an interesting engineering problem, Maltezos began to wonder how he could apply the microfluidic techniques that he was perfecting to real-world problems. Then the H5N1 bird flu pandemic erupted in Asia, and the team had their real-world problem. [Caltech Release]

Tags: APhMS EE MedE health Axel Scherer George Maltezos

Engineers Solve Longstanding Problem in Photonic Chip Technology

08-04-11

Liang Feng, a Postdoctoral Scholar in Electrical Engineering who works with Professor Axel Scherer, has designed a new type of optical waveguide - a 0.8-micron-wide silicon device. The waveguide allows light to go in one direction but changes the mode of the light when it travels in the opposite direction. This new technique to isolate light signals on a silicon chip, solves a longstanding problem in engineering photonic chips. [Caltech Press Release]

Tags: APhMS EE energy research highlights Liang Feng Axel Scherer postdocs