News & Events

02-22-23

Nearly a decade ago, researchers heralded the discovery of a new wonder class of ultrathin materials with special optical and electrical properties that made it a potential rival for graphene, a form of carbon discovered in 2004 whose own special properties interest both scientists and engineers. Now, Caltech engineers have shown that one of these wonder materials, tungsten diselenide, is not just a rival to graphene but also a complement to it. [Caltech Story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights Stevan Nadj-Perge Cyprian Lewandowski Alex Thomson Yiran Zhang Robert Polski Jason Alicea Étienne Lantagne Hurtubise

02-17-23

In recent months, debate has swirled around gas stoves and their relationship to health conditions such as childhood asthma. Paul Wennberg speaks with the Caltech Science Exchange about indoor air pollutants and what people can do to limit their exposure. Wennberg is Caltech's R. Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering; Executive Officer for Environmental Science and Engineering; Director, Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science. [Caltech Science Exchange story]

Tags: research highlights Paul Wennberg Caltech Science Exchange

02-14-23

Engineers from Caltech have discovered that Leonardo da Vinci's understanding of gravity—though not wholly accurate—was centuries ahead of his time. In an article published in the journal Leonardo, the researchers draw upon a fresh look at one of da Vinci's notebooks to show that the famed polymath had devised experiments to demonstrate that gravity is a form of acceleration—and that he further modeled the gravitational constant to around 97 percent accuracy. [Caltech Story]

Tags: research highlights GALCIT Morteza Gharib

02-13-23

Caltech researchers have developed proxies for human doctors that are small enough to travel through the human body and help diagnose ailments. These "smart pills" are typically swallowed, and as they pass through the digestive tract, they collect health data, record images, and even deliver drugs. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Azita Emami Mikhail Shapiro Saransh Sharma

12-16-22

Increasingly, the online world is moving toward automated moderation tools that can identify abusive words and behavior without the need for human intervention. Now, two researchers from Caltech, one an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) and the other a political scientist, are teaming up with Activision on a two-year research project that aims to create an AI that can detect abusive online behavior and help the company's support and moderation teams to combat it. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights CMS Animashree Anandkumar

12-02-22

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering, and his research team show how they developed a new variant of photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) called needle-shaped beam photoacoustic microscopy (NB-PAM). NB-PAM has a depth of field nearly 14 times greater than what was achievable before. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang Rui Cao

12-01-22

Scientists have, for the first time, developed a quantum experiment that allows them to study the dynamics, or behavior, of a special kind of theoretical wormhole. The research is a step toward studying quantum gravity in the lab. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights CMS Alexei Kitaev John Preskill Maria Spiropulu Alexander Zlokapa Samantha Davis Nikolai Lauk Daniel Jafferis Joseph Lykken David Kolchmeyer Hartmut Neven

12-01-22

Engineers at Caltech have developed a method for 3-D printing pure and multicomponent metals, at a resolution that is, in some cases, an order of magnitude smaller than previously possible. "We had to develop a new way of doing it, and we couldn't rely on heat to build our structures," says Max Saccone. [Caltech story]

Tags: APhMS research highlights MedE MCE MCE Julia Greer Max Saccone Rebecca Gallivan Daryl Yee Kai Narita

11-22-22

Thomas Hou, Charles Lee Powell Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics, and Jiajie Chen (PhD '22) of New York University's Courant Institute, provide a proof that resolves a longstanding open problem for the so-called 3D Euler singularity. Hou and colleagues' combined effort in proving the existence of blowup with the 3D Euler equation is a major breakthrough in its own right, but also represents a huge leap forward in tackling the Navier-Stokes Millennium Problem. If the Navier–Stokes equations could also blow up, it would mean something is awry with one of the most fundamental equations used to describe nature. [Caltech story]

Tags: research highlights CMS Thomas Hou Jiajie Chen

11-17-22

Engineers at Caltech and the University of Southampton in England have collaboratively designed an electronics chip integrated with a photonics chip (which uses light to transfer data)—creating a cohesive final product capable of transmitting information at ultrahigh speed while generating minimal heat. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights Azita Emami Minwo Wang Arian Hashemi Talkhooncheh