Four years ago, as an Engineering Dean’s Scholar, Jimmy Phan was listening to a lecture from the College of Engineering’s associate dean, Dan Ratner. Ratner told Phan’s cohort about the Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF), an open-access nanofabrication facility at the UW, and the opportunities for undergraduates to work there.
Step inside the Washington Nanofabrication Facility, where tiny tech is transforming research in quantum, chips, medicine and more.
March 3, 2025
Superconductors and magnets are already in wide use today — from magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scanners that look deep inside the body to gamma ray detectors of clandestine nuclear material to bolometers used in x-ray astronomy. They have been implemented in medical, military, security, and power applications as well as quantum computing and sensing. Because Eley’s research contributes to expanding fundamental knowledge about superconductivity and magnetism, her work could contribute to advancing technology in all of these areas.
Xiaodong Xu, professor of physics in the College of Arts & Sciences and of material sciences and engineering in the College of Engineering, was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Discovery.
Feb. 11, 2025
Collaboration can be a beautiful thing, especially when people work together to create something new. Take, for example, a longstanding collaboration between Arka Majumdar, a UW professor in electrical and computer engineering and physics, and Felix Heide, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University. Together, they and their students have produced some eye-popping and groundbreaking research, including shrinking a camera down to the size of a grain of salt while still capturing crisp, clear images.
In the University of Washington’s Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF), undergraduate lab assistants have a unique opportunity to receive on-the-job training from research engineers and network with professionals in advanced electronics, nanotechnology, semiconductors and fabrication-related jobs. Fourth-year electrical and computer engineering major Prithvi Krishnaswamy’s work in the WNF helped him land a summer internship at Nvidia, a company that designs hardware and software for the high-performance computing (HPC) market. Krishnaswamy interned at its Durham, North Carolina office.
Three exotic new species of superconductivity were spotted last year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.
Dec. 14, 2024
Maria Huffman, director of the University of Washington’s Washington Nanofabrication Facility, is part of a new, state-wide group of leaders from universities, research institutions, technology companies and the government who aim to strengthen the state’s semiconductor industry.
The group, organized by the Washington Department of Commerce, will work to attract federal funding through the CHIPS and Sciences Act.
Dec. 16, 2024
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. This disease is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and in the U.S., it accounts for one in five cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, which notes that early detection is key to survival.
Nov. 14, 2024
The human body contains a vast, complex, and interconnected web of organic tunnels and passageways that weave their way through the cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems. For physicians, reaching into this maze of arteries, bronchial tubes, and gastrointestinal chambers to view and treat diseased or damaged tissue can be, to put it mildly, challenging. Many of these conduits are long and winding but small in diameter, and they can narrow down to microscopic dimensions. Medical devices built to navigate and optically view these areas must be flexible, maneuverable, and carry a light source.