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Ma Lab

Probing & Engineering Quantum Matter
in the AI Era
We build AI-enabled tools that design quantum devices against the performance metrics that matter
and the microscopes that reveal the material physics limiting them

Modern AI frameworks make it practical to differentiate through an entire device model to the system-level figures of merit that define performance — with fabrication realism built into the same objective. We use these models to inverse-design quantum & classical hardware across thousands or more design parameters, from trapped-ion processors to atom–photon interfaces. The optimizer returns more than better devices: it reveals non-intuitive trade-offs and physical insights on fundamental limits of performance.

We develop microscopes that watch electrons move. Microwave impedance microscopy (MIM) and its descendants image conductivity, dielectric response, nonlinearity, and emergent electronic states at the nanoscale — in quantum materials and in working devices — revealing the microscopic patterns of dissipation, disorder, and dynamics that macroscopic measurements only average over.

The two threads close a loop: measurement tells us what limits quantum hardware, design tells us what to build and measure next.

Lab News

09/2026 Claude Science

We were selected to join the inaugural Claude Science cohort by Anthropic, and will test a range of topics along Agent-driven inverse design of physical devices. Grateful for the support and congrats to the team!

08/2026 New NSF grant

Our proposal with Feng Wang (UC Berkeley) on Ultrafast THz-IR Quantum Optoelectronics with Non-Equilibrium 2D Materials and Inverse-Designed Electromagnetic Structures was funded by NSF! We will integrate 2D van der Waals materials with inverse-designed electromagnetic structures to develop ultrafast THz-to-mid-IR quantum sensors. This research harnesses novel Floquet-driven quantum phases to create high-speed, high-sensitivity technologies for next-generation communications, biomedical diagnostics, and real-time threat detection. Congrats to the team!

07/2026 New DOE grant

Our proposal with Hartmut Haeffner (UC Berkeley), Xiaoxing Xia (LLNL), and Nathaniel Burdick (Quantinuum) on AI-Driven Inverse Design of Next-Generation 3D Quantum Processors (micro-3D printed ion traps) was selected as one of the inaugural Genesis Mission Phase I projects! Huge congrats to the team and super excited to get started.

12/2025 New publication

Our latest work on Resonant Distance Spectroscopic MIM (Rz-MIM) is a Featured Article in Applied Physics Letters! This new technique captures full distance spectroscopy curves on the fly, unlocking hyperspectral data for quantitative nanoscale analysis. It’s been a productive year for this research line, following Amogh Waghmare’s earlier paper on nonlinear MIM being selected as Editor's Choice and for the 2025 APL Rising Stars Collection. Looking forward to applying these new capabilities to open problems in quantum materials!

11/2025 New publication

New paper in Physical Review Applied (PDF) on microwave inverse design 📡: we developed a scattering-matrix workflow that composes precomputed full-wave elements to explore nonconvex RF spaces ≈10,000× faster and with ≈100–10,000× less memory—while retaining accuracy ⚡. We automatically design couplers, splitters, phase shifters, impedance matches, and demultiplexers. Congrats Nate, Xujia, and Tianhang!

10/2025 New publication

Microwave impedance microscopy goes fully digitally-controlled and surface mount based in our new paper in Review of Scientific Instruments (PDF). Congrats to Adam and Amogh -- this is 4 yrs in the making and the 1st paper from the group with the lead author being an undergrad, who also happened to be the 1st member of the group : )

9/2025 New lab members

Xujia, Pragyan, Dima, and Yin join Ma Lab: Xujia was a BPIE exchange student and now comes back to Ma Lab as a graduate student; Pragyan joins as a staff research associate after getting a BS in Physics here at Berkeley; Dima and Yin are Berkeley and BPIE undergraduate researchers, respectively. Welcome all!🚀

4/2025 New publication

Microwave impedance microscopy goes nonlinear🌀 in our new paper featured as an Editor’s Pick 👉 at Applied Physics Letters! This work provides a quantitative framework for interpreting multi-harmonic MIM signals, and can enable more quantitative nanoscale characterization of nonlinear materials, in particular semiconductors. Congratulations to the team, especially our Pi2 Summer Scholar at Berkeley Physics, where this project began. Undergrad research driving real impact!

1/2025 New publication

Curious which machine learning optimizer works best for nanophotonic inverse design -- and whether meta-learning makes a difference? 🤔Check out our latest work, "Efficiency of machine learning optimizers and meta-optimization for nanophotonic inverse design tasks" in APL Machine Learning!

9/2024 New lab members

Amogh, Siqi, and Xujia join Ma Lab: Amogh is a new grad student from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and will work on advancing everything related to microwave microscopy and spectroscopy. Siqi and Xujia are BPIE exchange students and will work on physics-informed pre-optimization for inverse design. Welcome all!🚀

9/2024 New publication

Our latest work, "Coherent spin wave excitation with radio-frequency spin–orbit torque" is out in the Journal of Applied Physics! We dive into the unexplored potential of using microwave📡 spin-orbit torque (SOT) to generate coherent spin waves in magnetic insulators -- higher efficiency, unique mode selectivity, reduced distortion, and more. Huge thanks to our co-authors Hossein Taghinejad and Prof. James G. Analytis, and congrats to Nate!🚀

8/2024 New NSF grant

🎉Our proposal, "Advanced Inverse Design of Planar Microwave and Millimeter Wave Devices" is selected by the NSF's CCSS Program! With our local collaborator Jun-Chau Chien, we aim to significantly expand the accessible design space of GHz-THz devices for classical and quantum applications, taking inspiration from nanophotonics and adapting to microwave-specific challenges and opportunities. 🚀

6/2024 New microwave publication

Our latest work, "Johnson-noise-limited cancellation-free microwave impedance microscopy with monolithic silicon cantilever probes", is published in Nature Communications! Led by Junyi, Nate, and in collaboration with Su-Di from Feng Wang group, we set a new sensitivity record for MIM AND made it drastically more accessible. Congrats, and looking forward to the new science this breakthrough enables!

6/2024 Hellman Fellows

Eric was selected as a 2024 Hellman Fellow to pursue high-risk research on the mid-infrared fluorescent properties of optical phonons. This prestigious award, supported by the Society of Hellman Fellows Fund, recognizes early-career faculty who show promise for distinction in research. I am deeply thankful for this opportunity to expand our work and contribute further to a less-traveled direction!

4/2024 Google Research Scholar

Eric was selected as a 2024 Google Research Scholar in the category of Applied Science, to explore Parsing Physics Literature with Large Language Models. The Research Scholar Program provides unrestricted gifts to support world-class research conducted by early-career professors. The idea of this project came out of an ongoing URAP project with Andrew and Khoa. Congratulations and we appreciate the support!

4/2024 Moore Foundation grant

The team of Mike Crommie, Eric Y. Ma, Alp Sipahigil, and Feng Wang at UC Berkeley Physics & EECS was selected by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative to develop an unprecedented Quantum-Limited Atomic Force Microscope based on recent advances in nano-optomechanics. It will be fun!

4/2024 Nate wins Berkeley Connect Fellowship

Nate was selected as a recipient of the prestigious Berkeley Connect Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship provides graduate students with research support and professional development. Nate will provide academic mentoring to undergraduates in Physics helping students build community and increase their sense of belonging at UC Berkeley. Congrats Nate!

3/2024 New microwave conference paper

Junyi's paper "Advanced microwave impedance microscopy for emerging materials and devices" is accepted by 2024 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium. Here we talked about how our recent breakthrough in microwave impedance microscopy (under review) enables a range of advanced sensing modalities. Congratulations and see you in DC in June!

2/2024 New physics x AI publication

Nate's paper "Physics-agnostic inverse design using transfer matrices" is published in APL Machine Learning. Here we demonstrated inverse-designing non-intuitive optical, acoustic, and quantum structures using a single unified framework. This work marks the 1st publication from the group at the interface of Physics and ML/AI. Much more to come soon.

6/2023 New group members

Aditi, a MPS Scholar, Trey, a SEED Scholar, and Joshua, a Pi2 Scholar, join Ma Lab as undergraduate researchers this summer, to work on various aspects of microwave microscopy and spectroscopy. Welcome!

3/25/2023 New microwave publication

Junyi and Nate's paper on design principles of transmission-mode microwave impedance microscopy (T-MIM) is published in Applied Physics Letters. This work extends our recent quantitative understanding of conventional reflection-mode operation to transmission mode, and will allow us to build T-MIMs beyond the weak sampling regime.

12/05/2022 Amazon Physical Science Fellowship

Eric won the prestigious Amazon Physical Science Fellowship! This award recognizes 3 individuals who have shown the skills necessary to bridge the gap between fundamental scientific results in the physical sciences and the development of impactful technologies. We thank Amazon for the generous support and look forward to more future collaborations with Amazon Science.

10/27/2022 New photonics publication

Our paper on the Reststrahlen effect in the optically-thin limit is published in Nano Letters, and selected as Cover! This paper established a general framework for treating coherent resonant response in optically-thin media, using hBN films across 5 orders of magnitude in thickness as a model system.

10/6/2022 New group members

Katie, Erfan, and Ruiyu join Ma Lab as undergraduate researchers. Welcome! Katie is a freshman in EECS, and Erfan and Ruiyu are Physics BPIE students.

9/21/2022 New microwave publication

Junyi and Adam's paper on universal signal scaling in microwave impedance microscopy is published in Applied Physics Letters today. The first original research paper from the group -- congrats!

6/16/2022 New group members

Junyi, Nate, and Lance join Ma Lab as the 1st postdoc, 1st graduate student, and the 1st CS major undergrad. Welcome!

4/26/2022 Pi2 Summer Scholar

Congrats to Jiu for being selected as a prestiguous Pi2 Summer Scholar! She will develop an open-source high-speed lock-in amplifier with external reference, mentored directly by Eric.

2/12/2022 Student office renovated

Starting with an empty room, after a few weekends' cleaning and IKEA work, and thanks to the help of all the team members, our student office is now in great working condition! (yes we need better cable management and more shelves)

This is the maker/DIY spirit of Ma Lab in display -- easily one of the best student offices in the building with an extremely low renovation budget!

2/10/2022 Daniel, Jiu and Roger join Ma Lab

The 2022 Spring URAP cohort of three join Ma Lab! Check them out in Teams. Thanks to all who applied through URAP again. Feel free to reach out if you have ideas about the various Summer programs!

1/12/2022 URAP projects open for application

Our URAP projects for Spring 2022 are online! We are recruiting student apprentices with diverse sets of analog/digital/RF electronics and CS/data science skills this semester.

10/06/2021 Main lab punch list walk

Our main lab renovation is "almost" ready, after a hectic week installing the optical tables and fixing last-minute issues. A subset of people who made this possible (from left to right): Caesar & Travis (superintendent) from Build Group, Thad (main architect) from Shaffer Architects, and Jed, our fearless project manager.

9/15/2021 Adam & Yufeng join Ma Lab

Adam and Yufeng become the first Ma Lab members through URAP. Welcome! Adam will work on designing and building a cost-effective high-performance microwave reflectometer, and Yufeng on making a multi-node real-time Cloud-enabled lab environment monitoring system.

Thanks to all who applied for our URAP projects again. Feel free to check back in Spring!

9/2/2021 URAP projects open for application

Ma Lab has two Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) projects for Fall 2021, one for building microwave reflectometry using low-cost components, and the other for real-time Cloud-enabled lab environment monitoring. Check them out here!

8/25/2021 Main lab in renovation

Our main lab, Birge B260, with ~70% renovation done. You can see HEPA filters in the ceiling and overhead racks for the optical tables. The design and planning started well over a year ago. Kudos to the team!

8/23/2021 First day on campus

Ma Lab kick-off party with perfect 1/1 attendance at the Sather Gate. Hello Berkeley!

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