Archives

1/10/13 - Dr. Kwang Oh has been featured in Lab on a Chip’s 2012 Emerging Investigators  themed issue (impact factor: 6.5). Furthermore, images by Dr. Oh and his students are featured on the cover of the journal, describing a robust droplet fusion and sorting method for two parallel trains of droplets that is relatively insensitive to frequency and phase mismatch. Research by Dr. Oh was previously featured on the inside cover of the October 2011 edition of Lab on a Chip. Please click here to find the full article of Dr. Oh’s most recent work.

Dr. Jennifer Zirnheld of the UB EE Department was among five faculty chosen to receive the UB Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity. The award seeks to recognize faculty that provide research and scholarship opportunities for undergraduate students that are not commonly available at many institutions and oftenresult in the creation of transformative educational experiences.

A new patent (US8271572) for "Generating Partial Sums" was issued to Prof. Adly Fam of the UB EE department on September 18, 2012. The invention describes what might very well be the fastest available multioperand adder to date.

Invited paper by Aaron Roof and Adly Fam, “Automatic classification of multiple signals using 2D matching of magnitude–frequency density features,” has just been published (9/17/2012) in Springer Journal on Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing and is available as an 'Online First' via this Springer Link .

The paper is an extension of a conference paper that received Best Paper award in the Software Defined Radio Conference (November 2011) and is the basis of an invention adopted by UB.

Dr. Steve Durbin, of both the EE and Physics Department, was recently granted a new National Science Foundation award titled, “EAGER: Earth Abundant Element Nitride Semiconductors Based on ZnSnN2.”  The award is comprised of $ 239,973 in funding over 2 years starting September 1, 2012.

This project is focused on growth and characterization of high-quality single-crystal thin films of zinc tin nitride, a material predicted to have the right combination of properties needed for solar cell applications, but which to date has not been synthesized. The II-IV-nitride family is comprised of earth-abundant elements for which there already exists significant recycling infrastructure, making it of interest for device applications from both economic and environmental perspectives.

Dr. Vladimir Mitin, with Co-Is Dr. Petrou Athos and Dr. Joseph Zawicki , has recently been awarded funding by the National Science Foundation for his project titled, "Synergy of Educational Tools for Teaching Electromagnetic Fields and Waves: Lab Experiments, Educational Java Applets, Numerical Modeling, Textbook with Power Point Presentations." The award is comprised of $199,973 in funding over 3 years, starting September 1, 2012.

This project seeks to develop a conceptually novel one-semester Electromagnetic Fields and Waves (EFW) course for engineering junior undergraduate students and establish a new undergraduate laboratory for teaching EFW.This novel approach to the teaching of EFW will be based on the interactive approach – experiment – theory – experiment– applications. Through experiments, educational Java applets, and software for numerical solutions, undergraduate students will actively learn the theoretical principles of EFW and develop a scientific approach, which promotes critical reasoning and creative thinking.

EE's own Prof. Natalia Litchinitser has published an exciting new article titled, "Structured Light Meets Structured Matter," in the August 2012 edition of Science Magaizine. The article highlights innovative research that has developed as a result of synergies between metamaterials and singular optics. Dr. Litchinitser's work is further discussed in a follow-up article by the UB Reporter.

Professors Natalia Litchinitser and Alexander Cartwright were recently granted a new National Science Foundation award titled, “Submicron Remote Imaging using Specialty Fiber Coupled Hyperlens”. The award is comprised of $370,000 in funding over 3 years starting August 1, 2012.

The objective of this new NSF project is to develop fiber based hyperlens for ultra-high resolution optical imaging and endoscopy

Prof.Qiaoqiang Gan was recented granted a new award from the Bruce Holm Memorial Catalyst Fund for his project titled, “A Prototype of Circular Plasmonic Mach-Zender Interferometer for Low-cost Multiplexed Biosensing.” The award is comprised of $50,000 for 1 year starting August 1, 2012.

This project aims to develop a circular plasmonic Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) biosensor to demonstrate a portable and parallel sensor system. By observing the output intensity emitted from the nanostructre in real-time, one can effectively screen biomolecular binding events and analyze the binding kinetics, which, importantly, is much cheaper than conventional SPR systems and extremely attractive to the market.

Professors Gesualdo Scutari and Tommaso Melodia were recently granted a new National Science Foundation award titled, “Small: Toward Distributed Decision Making in Cognitive Radio Ad-hoc Networks Based on Bi-level Equilibrium Programming”. The award is comprised of $400,000 in funding over 3 years starting July 1, 2012.

The objective of this project is  to look at the cross-layer design of cognitive radio networks from a different and novel perspective. The cross-layer design including the optimization of sensing  parameters is formulated as a bi-level equilibrium problem, whose solution analysis is addressed using the advanced theory of variational inequalities. The project will contribute to the development of novel algorithms and tools that  naturally implement vertical and horizontal decompositions across the network. This will lay the foundation for the next generation of cognitive networking technology. 

EE student Eric Kozarsky was awarded Best Poster at the 38th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists for the presentation of his poster titled, "Thin-Film ZnO/Si Heterojunction Solar Cells: Design and Implementation." The conference was held in Austin, Texas from June 3 - June 8, 2012. The winning poster was authored by Kozarsky and additional EE graduate students, Juyung Yun, Chong Tong, Xueli Hao, Jun Wang, and their advisor, Dr. Wayne A. Anderson.

Winners of the James J. Whalen Memorial Multistage Amplifier Design Competition have been announced in the following categories and prizes:

Most Unusual Circuit/Least Number of Parts ($250)- David Marks 
Most Exceeded Design Parameters ($200 each)- Boris Yuditsky and Chris Adams

Participation in the competition was open to all undergraduates enrolled in EE353 and EE311. Congratulations to our winners!

UB Electrical Engineering is pleased to welcome two new faculty members to the department. Dr. Zhi Sun and Dr. Cristinel Ababei will join the department in Fall 2012. Dr. Sun is coming to us from Georgia Tech where he comepleted his PhD in Electrical Engineering and served as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Ababei received his PhD from the University of Minnesota and previously worked as an Assistant Professor of ECE at North Dakota State University.