Winners announced for the 2024 Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge

Screenshot of participants (on Zoom) of the Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge.

The National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NanoEarth) hosted the tenth annual NanoTechnology Entrepreneurship Challenge (NTEC) on April 30th. This year, 15 teams competed from seven separate sites, incorporating 18 students. The Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NNI) supported one team. The NNI Team was led by student Saowaluk Soonthornkit, researching “Durable Double Perovskite SrColrO3 Electrocatalyst for Acidic Media Water Electrolyzer”. Zhenxing Feng, Ph.D, Associate Professor at Oregon State University, served as the team mentor.

UW researchers find electrons uniting into entities with fractions of electric charge without a magnetic field

Despite 127 years of being studied, electrons are still surprising researchers. A UW-led team including NanoES members Matthew Yankowitz and Xiaodong Xu, found electrons behaving like quasiparticles with a fractional charge in a unique setup, a first without a magnetic field.

NanoES announces 2024 Northwest Nanotechnology Seed Grant awardees

Left to right: Shijie Cao, Ali Sadeghi, Shijing Sun

The UW Institute for Nano-engineered Systems (NanoES) has awarded three seed grants to UW researchers to use nanotechnology tools to develop new, innovative technologies and devices. Shijie Cao, professor of pharmaceutics, Ali Sadeghi, postdoctoral scholar in neurological surgery, and Shijing Sun, professor of mechanical engineering will receive up to $10,000 to carry out work in the UW’s Washington Nanofabrication Facility (WNF) and Molecular Analysis Facility (MAF).

UW leads international group in semiconductor research and workforce development

An engineer in the clean room of the WNF

The University of Washington is at the forefront of an international effort to innovate the semiconductor industry while building a skilled U.S.-based workforce to design and manufacture chip technology.

Creating tougher sustainable materials

ME Assistant Professor Lucas Meza received an NSF CAREER Award to study how to create tough, sustainable materials using nanoengineering.

Ultra-flat optics for broadband thermal imaging

$side view of a fabricated wafer containing meta-optics held above a conventional refractive lens.$

Long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) imaging holds critical significance across many applications, from consumer electronics to defense and national security. It finds applications in night vision, remote sensing, and long-range imaging. However, the conventional refractive lenses employed in these imaging systems are bulky and heavy, which is undesirable for almost all applications. Compounding this issue is the fact that many LWIR refractive lenses are crafted from expensive and limited-supply materials, such as germanium.

UW ECE Assistant Professor Sara Mouradian receives AFOSR YIP award for quantum computing research

UW ECE Assistant Professor Sara Mouradian has been awarded a three-year grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, or AFOSR, through its Young Investigator Program, or YIP. The grant will support work in Mouradian’s Scalable Quantum Research Lab, which aims to build, understand and control trapped ion quantum systems in order to develop useful and practical quantum technologies. Mouradian joins an elite group of investigators as one of only 48 scientists and engineers from across the nation that have been awarded a 2024 AFOSR YIP grant. These individuals have each demonstrated exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research relevant to the U.S. Air Force and national defense.

CEI ANNOUNCES COLLABORATIVE SEED GRANTS

Lilo Pozzo, Matthew Yankowitz and Xiaodong Xu

The University of Washington’s Clean Energy Institute has awarded Collaborative Seed Grants to three teams of UW faculty to enable their pursuit of center-scale funding for transformative clean energy research. Collaborative Seed Grants provide UW scholars with up to $200,000 to explore novel, high-risk/high-reward research topics while seeding new collaborations in research and education that significantly increase the prospects for future extramural support.

A laser printer for photonic chips

A machine showing a laser printing a photonic chip

Photonic integrated circuits are an important, next-wave technology. These sophisticated microchips hold the potential to substantially decrease costs and increase speed and efficiency for electronic devices across a wide range of application areas, including automotive technology, communications, healthcare, data storage, and computing for artificial intelligence.

Arka Majumdar named 2024 Optica Fellow

Arka Majumdar, an associate professor in UW ECE and in the physics department, was recently named a 2024 Optica Fellow for his significant achievements in optics — the branch of physics that studies the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter.