Abstract:
The ability to use electromagnetic waves to interact with the physical world and extract information from observable changes constitute one of the canonical representations of sensing. Our ability to accomplish these complex tasks in mm-scale chip platforms has, so far, been limited to very small and distinct regions of the spectrum, primarily limited by the underlying device technology. In the next few decades, there is need to expand this spectral access across orders of magnitude, to create the future smart ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ that can monitor from health at the bio-molecular level to the environment and everything in between, and make intelligent decisions based on them.
In this talk, I will highlight our approaches to allow this field-to-information paradigm in mm-size chip-scale systems across two very different and highly application-rich wavelength regimes: mmWave/Terahertz and visible-range/near-IR optical frequencies. Visible range is a dominant spectral region in bio-medical analysis ranging from analysis of complex bio-molecular and cell interactions to diagnostics and drug testing with fluorescence reporters, but these instruments are typically bulky, expensive and limited to centralized laboratories. In the first part of the talk, I will highlight our approaches to completely eliminate all external optics and radically miniaturize them merging nano-optical structures with embedded electronics to allow new class of bio-molecular and sensing platforms. In the second part of the talk, I will highlight our approaches in the longer wavelengths at mm-Wave and THz frequencies and describe how we exploit sensing and manipulation (also at sub-wavelength scales) to incorporate programmability and universality, critical for future communication and sensing.
Bio:
Kaushik Sengupta received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in electronics and electrical communication engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. In 2013, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, as a Faculty Member. His current research interests include high-frequency ICs, electromagnetics, and optics for various applications in sensing, imaging, and high-speed communication. Dr. Sengupta received the Bell Labs Prize (2017), Young Investigator Program (YIP) Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2017, the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2018) E. Lawrence Keys, Jr./Emerson Electric Co. Junior Faculty Award and the Charles Wilts Prize for the best Ph.D. thesis in Electrical Engineering at Caltech. He was four times selected to the Princeton Engineering Commendation List for Outstanding Teaching in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018 and received the ‘Excellence in Teaching Award’ from the School of Engineering at Princeton University in 2018 nominated by the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Council. He serves on the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE ESSCIRC, IEEE CICC and PIERS and is the Guest Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, special issue of European Solid-State Circuits Conference in 2018. He was co-recipient of the 2015 IEEE MTT-S Microwave Prize.
