Research Activities
My research goal and interests are focused on novel electronics materials and techniques, microwave to terahertz components and systems, and on bioelectromagnetism. My special expertise is in theory, design and characterization of microsystems for sensing, energy conversion and radiofrequency communications with an enphasis on micro/nanoscale reliability. Micro and nanotechnology have matured to the degree that they are in the cusp for many commercial, defense and biomedical applications such as in phased-array radar, cognitive radio, and remote-health care.
During my Ph.D. thesis at XLIM (University of Limoges, France) I have been active in design, fabrication and characterization of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) for microwave applications. Most research efforts have been dedicated to the development of a MEMS based reconfigurable filter capable of both frequency and bandwidth tunability, a multi-standard filter for reconfigurable frontends, and MEMS switched varactor for high RF power applications. In 2006, the latter was the first MEMS switched varactor for S, X-band applications demonstrating one billion cycle operation in hot switching conditions, under RF power of 1 W.
Ph.D. Thesis (English, with cover and introduction in French):
RF MEMS Components for Reconfigurable Frontends.pdf
In 2007 I joined Lehigh University as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. J. Hwang’s group where I was then appointed a research scientist in 2010. There I participated in several US government funded programs including the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) MEMS/NEMS S&T Fundamentals for transfer of MEMS technology to the Department Of Defense and commercial systems, the DARPA HERMIT program for the development of micromechanical devices operating under harsh conditions, the IMPACT center for Advancement of MEMS/NEMS VLSI design, the NASA project on microshutters for the James Webb Space Telescope and the IBM program on CMOS-compatible MEMS switches. At Lehigh I gained substantial expertise in operating cutting-edge microwave test facilities and I developed my research funding hunting game. In 2008 I proposed a microwave intermodulation technique to monitor the mechanical stress in MEMS switches and co-developed the first Verilog compact model for large RF signal simulation. I won competitive funding from NASA with a proposal entitled “High Performance Ka-band Phase Shifters for Space Communications.” and completed the following project by inventing a compact low-loss broadband phase shifter, which our collaborator MEMtronics Corp. filed for provisional patent. This invention exploits a metamaterial design to achieve high impedance match, low-loss and more compact size than in conventional phasers, thus later gained support form both industry (Boeing) and government sponsors (Air Force Office of Scientific Research). In 2009 I invented a MEMS electrostatic generator for harvesting energy from environmental vibrations after winning the Lehigh Energy Research Seed Grant. Since 2010 I helped our industrial partners to shelter research funding for several M$ and I am the Co-Principal investigator in two projects sponsored by the Missile Defense Agency and the Air Force Research Laboratory that focus on the integration of high power non-dispersive metamaterial phase shifters into electronically scanned antennas for military radar and communications. Finally in 2011 I initiated a research effort in the new field of biolectromagnetism and demonstrated a compact measurement setup and microfluidic chamber for nano-electroporation of biological cells. The ensuing proposal entitled “Compact, Fast Intracellular Bio-Detection by Integrated Nanopulse Generator and Planar Microchamber” which I jointly submitted as a co-Principal Investigator with two Lehigh’s professors was awarded a 0.5M$ grant by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency with possible extension to a multiple year (and M$) program.
For a few calculations and tricks I used here and there along the way:
