Technology Enablers for 21st Century Applications in mm-wave Communications and Nanomedicine

Over two decades ago, we imagined wireless technology and integrated portable devices with computing, communications, and imaging that could offer anytime anywhere access for communicating, sensing, and data sharing. Today, this is reality and this is the result of advances in (1) different technology areas, (2) integration and packaging technology, and (3) microelectronics fabrication. These solutions motivated investments in technology development for the Internet of Things and 5G.

Now, new technology concepts are being imagined, such as mobile autonomous systems with artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to support the concept development of smart cities, agriculture, and health. These new concepts demand more advances at the intersection of different technology areas and even higher levels of integration within/between systems that can operate over broader aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e., several GHz to several hundred GHz). Moreover, for operation above millimeter wave frequencies, power consumption management remains a serious challenge due to the inherent power reduction of devices as operating frequencies increase. Advances in design methods and fabrication approaches that use different materials, therefore, are needed that can reduce power consumption, offer high integration capability at low cost.

This talk will highlight a few enabling technologies we have been investigating to support advancement of communication systems above mm-wave frequencies and bio-labels for nanomedicine. For communications, design concepts to make virtual antennas with high gain and high directivity, as well as vertical free-space, interconnects for 3D integration will be discussed.  Copper nanowire technology will also be described for low-loss vertical interconnects. For nanomedicine, the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) frequency in magnetic nanowire is described to form FMR-ID nanolabels that can be used as bio-markers in cancer detection.