A better light bulb

A new approach to building phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs), spearheaded by Prof. Stephen Forrest, will make them useful even for general lighting. PHOLEDs have already been adopted as a key lighting material for smart phones.
 

Highly efficient laser-like beams

Prof. Pallab Bhattacharya and his team created the first room-temperature polariton laser that is fueled by electrical current as opposed to light. The device creates these beams using 250x less electricity than its conventional counterpart made of the same material.
 

Listening to light waves

Terahertz waves (T-rays) can be used for weapons detection, medical imaging, diagnosis, and even astronomy - but they are not easy to detect. ECE researchers created a device that turns T-rays into ultrasound, which is then detected by a highly sensitive, and small, acoustic sensor.
 

How do memristors remember?

Metal particles in memristors, which are computer components that combine logic and memory functions, apparently don’t stay put. The research, led by Prof. Wei Lu, shows how memristors are able to remember, and has broad implications for the entire semiconductor industry.
 

ECE is home to a new five-year $7.5M MURI led by Prof. Stephen Rand that aims to provide a better understanding of phenomena driven by the magnetic field component of light. The DYNAMO Center will investigate the prospects for direct conversion of light to electricity without any thermodynamic loss.

Prof. Eric Michielssen received the 2014 IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator Award for being an outstanding educator, mentor and role model for the next generation of faculty members.

Chia Hsiang Chen - Intel Fellowship for research in low-power and error-resilient circuit techniques

Parinaz Naghizadeh - Barbour Scholar researching economic network security

Muzhi Wang - IEEE IMS2014 paper award for MEMS research