The use of standing surface acoustic waves (SSAWs) in microfluidic channels gained significant momentum when researchers demonstrated size-based cell separation (acoustophoresis) using lateral acoustic forces. Using interdigitated transducers (IDTs) positioned on piezoelectric substrates, SSAWs were found to create pressure nodes along the channel width, allowing larger particles to experience greater acoustic radiation forces and migrate toward these nodes faster than smaller particles. Acoustic-based microfluidic devices were successfully applied to circulating tumor cell (CTC) isolation from clinical blood samples in ~2015, demonstrating recovery rates >80% using tilted-angle standing surface acoustic waves, though these systems relied primarily on size-based separation principles. The integration of acoustic methods with microfluidics offered key advantages including label-free operation, biocompatibility, non-contact manipulation, and preservation of cell viability, addressing limitations of earlier methods like centrifugation, FACS, and magnetic separation that could damage cells or require labeling. Despite these advances in acoustic microfluidics, significant challenges persist in affinity-based rare cell isolation, particularly mass transport limitations in microfluidic channels operating at high Peclet numbers (Pe>10⁶) where convective flow dominates over diffusion. In traditional microfluidic affinity capture systems, cells flow predominantly in the center of laminar flow channels where fluid velocity is highest, resulting in minimal interaction with capture agents immobilized on channel walls and requiring extremely long channels or impractically slow flow rates to achieve adequate capture efficiency. The extremely low concentration of CTCs , combined with their phenotypic heterogeneity and the low diffusion coefficients of cells creates a "needle in a haystack" challenge that existing acoustic separation methods based solely on size discrimination cannot adequately address.

      State-of-the-art scanning probe microscopy (SPM) systems, including microwave impedance microscopy (MIM) and near-field scanning microscopy (NSOM), typically operate in a dynamic, non-contact “tapping” mode. Lock-in detection at the probe cantilever’s resonant mechanical oscillation frequency mitigates effects of drift and achieves high measurement sensitivity of local material characteristics. Electrical, mechanical, or other material properties can be measured down to the nanoscale. However, a full time-domain tip-sample response would yield a much richer data set. Unfortunately, existing methodologies require moving the entire scan head to sweep the tip-sample separation at rates far below the resonant frequency of the cantilever or tuning fork—yielding slow scan speeds and outputs vulnerable to drift, 1/f noise, and stray coupling.       To overcome these challenges, UC Berkeley researchers have leveraged high-speed data acquisition, wideband detection electronics, and modern real-time computing to acquire hyperspectral datasets at twice the mechanical resonant frequency of the probe. The invention captures up to hundreds of thousands of curves per second, without sacrificing scan speed, resolution, or stability. It can be straightforwardly integrated on most commercial SPM platforms, and for a wide range of resonantly driven probes, including cantilevers, quartz tuning forks, and qPlus sensor. Among other benefits, the technique enables novel post-processing capabilities, including retrospective enhancement of spatial resolution.

UC Berkeley researchers have developed a novel dispersion system for agricultural and environmental payloads, including seeds, soil amendments, miniature soil sensors, and so forth. Dispersive packages are biodegradable and biomimetically designed with similarities to natural seeds. Aerodynamic properties control large-area dispersions, while importantly, tunable gyroscopic properties are programmed for penetration parameters, such as depth, upon impact. Payload distribution can be fine-tuned accounting for local soil moisture and grain-size.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed tactile feedback systems that enhance spatial and sensory resolution in sensor arrays through unique signal modulation techniques.

This technology introduces a novel approach for bridging force sensing with wireless communication through direct analog force-to-RF conversion provides lower power consumption and lower costs.

Outdoor wireless sensor and camera networks are important for environmental monitoring and public-safety surveillance, yet their real-world deployment still relies heavily on expert intuition and exhaustive simulations that fail to scale in many landscapes. Traditional coverage-maximization techniques evaluate every candidate position for every node while factoring in every other node, the task complexity becomes intractable as node count or terrain granularity grows. The challenge is sharper in three-dimensional topographies where ridges, valleys, and plateaus block line-of-sight and invalidate two-dimensional heuristics. Moreover, once nodes are in the field, relocating them is slow and costly if new blind spots emerge or missions evolve.

This technology revolutionizes hydrogen production by using induction heating for catalytic methane decomposition, significantly increasing hydrogen yield.

This technology introduces a fast and low-cost method suitable for manufacturing ultra-long carbon nanotubes using water-soluble catalysts and standard optical lithography. Further, it also ensures vertical alignment of electrodes, a crucial component in electronic devices.

A groundbreaking system that enables navigation in GPS-denied environments by using intelligent systems to mimic biological systems that recognize locations through visual cues and perform contextually appropriate actions.

This technology represents a significant leap in radar systems, offering millimeter-scale range resolution and high angular resolution.

A revolutionary method for synthesizing nanotubes that eliminates common impurities and defects, enabling faster production.

A novel circuit design promoting enhanced sensitivity for electromagnetic sensing through exceptional points of degeneracy.

An innovative approach to vehicle localization and mapping using lidar and cellular LTE data, enhancing accuracy without relying on GNSS signals.

This technology uses smartphones to monitor a building's structural health by recording ambient vibrations. The data is processed to determine structural parameters, establishing a baseline to identify changes that may indicate damage, and trigger inspections.

In PET imaging, patient motion, such as respiratory and cardiac motion, are a major source of blurring and motion artifacts. Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed a technology designed to enhance PET imaging resolution without the need for external devices by effectively mitigating these artifacts

The DDFB laser introduces a novel feedback mechanism for enhanced frequency selectivity and stability in laser oscillation.

      Microwave impedance microscopy (MIM) is an emerging scanning probe technique that enables non-contact, nanoscale measurement of local complex permittivity. By integrating an ultrasensitive, phase-resolved microwave sensor with a near-field probe, MIM has made significant contributions to diverse fundamental and applied fields. These include strongly correlated and topological materials, two-dimensional and biological systems, as well as semiconductor, acoustic, and MEMS devices. Concurrently, notable progress has been made in refining the MIM technique itself and broadening its capabilities. However, existing literature has focused exclusively on linear MIM based on homodyne architectures, where reflected or transmitted microwave is demodulated and detected at the incident frequency. As such, linear MIM lacks the ability to probe local electrical nonlinearity, which is widely present, for example, in dielectrics, semiconductors, and superconductors. Elucidating such nonlinearity with nanoscale spatial resolution would provide critical insights into semiconductor processing and diagnostics as well as fundamental phenomena like local symmetry breaking and phase separation.       To address this shortcoming, UC Berkeley researchers have introduced a novel methodology and apparatus for performing multi-harmonic MIM to locally probe electrical nonlinearities at the nanoscale. The technique achieves unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution in characterizing complex materials. It encompasses both hardware configurations enabling multi-harmonic data acquisition and the theoretical and calibration protocols to transform raw signals into accurate measures of intrinsic nonlinear permittivity and conductivity. The advance extends existing linear MIM into the nonlinear domain, providing a powerful, versatile, and minimally invasive tool for semiconductor diagnostics, materials research, and device development.

This technology encompasses a suite of patents for developing gyroscopes that offer both broad bandwidth and high sensitivity, suitable for a variety of challenging environments.

Sensors are used in a multitude of applications from molecular biology, chemicals detection to wireless communications. Researchers at the University of California Irvine have invented a new type of electronic circuit that utilizes exceptional points of degeneracy to improve the sensitivity of signal detection.

      Pebble bed reactors (PBRs) are an emerging advanced nuclear reactor design where fuel pebbles constantly circulate through the core, as opposed to housing static fuel assemblies, generating numerous advantages including the ability for online refueling versus expensive shutdowns. Online refueling is overall beneficial but poses an operation challenge in that the pebbles must be measured and analyzed for burnup characteristics very quickly (in under 40 seconds), without much time to cool down, challenging the high Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors historically used for burnup measurements. HPGe detectors can normally only be operated up to tens of thousands of counts per second, far below radiation rates from freshly discharged fuel, and are therefore operated at large distances from sources, with significant shielding. Only a small fraction of detected counts comes from burnup markers, yielding high uncertainty, or can be completely masked by effects of Compton scattering within the detectors.      To overcome the challenges of using HGPe detectors to measure burnup in continuously fueled reactors, UC Berkeley researchers have developed a novel technology capable of measuring gamma rays within a fine energy ranges and without the interference of Compton scattering. The device is also significantly cheaper than HPGe detectors and offers a reduced detector footprint. Nuclides including but not limited to Np-239, Eu-156, and Zr-95 can be measured and analyzed for burnup, path information through the core, and fast and thermal fluence. Furthermore, precise measurement of the Np-239 content provides better data for reactor safeguard purposes. The technology offers meaningful improvements in measurement accuracy, footprint, and cost, for PBRs and other continuously fueled reactors, such as molten salt reactors (MSRs).

      Poorly designed healthcare environments can increase patient stress and delay recovery, particularly in pediatric settings (see, e.g., Devlin & Andrade 2017; Park et al. 2018; Jafarifiroozabadi et al. 2023). Traditional methods for gathering architectural design feedback, such as interviews, surveys, and focus groups, rely heavily on subjective user input, and often fail to capture the voices of children by relying on parent proxies. Physical mock-ups, a common alternative to traditional methods, provide a full-scale model of a room or space, often constructed from materials like cardboard or foam. While these mock-ups allow for some degree of spatial exploration, they are time-intensive, and limited in their ability to replicate real-world conditions; high-fidelity mock-ups which incorporate more realistic materials and finishes add expense and limit flexibility for testing multiple design iterations.       To overcome these challenges UC Berkeley researchers have developed an innovative participatory design methodology that leverages advanced virtual reality (VR), eye-tracking, and physiological/emotional biofeedback technologies to evaluate the design of pediatric healthcare environments. This comprehensive system is further enhanced by custom-developed workflows for creating dynamic, interactive room simulations that are randomized to ensure rigorous, unbiased data collection. The methodology is uniquely capable of gathering objective, quantifiable data on how pediatric patients and their families respond physiologically and emotionally to specific environmental design features.

      Effective thermal management remains a critical challenge in designing and operating next-generation electronics, data centers, and energy systems. Devices are steadily shrinking and handling increased power densities. Traditional cooling strategies, such as heat sinks and immersive cooling systems, fall short in delivering the targeted, localized cooling needed to prevent or address thermal hotspots. Current solutions for localized hotspot cooling require active, energy-intensive methods like pumping of coolants and complex thermal architecture design.       To overcome these challenges, UC Berkeley researchers present a transformative passive method for localized, autonomous cooling of hotspots. The cooling system delivers effective, localized cooling across various device surfaces and geometries, including those geometries wherein cooling media must move against gravity. The benefits of the present system will be appreciated for computer chip and other electronics cooling, microgravity applications, battery thermal management. Beyond thermal management, the underlying system may also open novel avenues in fluid manipulation and energy harvesting.

      The demand for miniaturized power electronics with increased efficiency and performance motivates the exploration of piezoelectric structures as alternative passive components; piezoelectric components store energy in mechanical compliance and inertia with extremely high quality factors and energy densities significantly greater than those of magnetics at small scales. Recent magnetic-less dc-dc converter designs based on single-port piezoelectric resonators (PRs) have demonstrated power stage efficiencies of 99% and PR power handling densities of up to 5.7 kW/cm3. While marking tremendous milestones, such performance has only been achieved in non-isolated dc-dc converters with mild (2:1) voltage conversion ratios, confining the utility of piezoelectric-based power conversion to a narrow subset of applications.       Piezoelectrics may be expanded to a broader set of applications through use of multi-port piezoelectric transformers (PTs), which offer the same advantages as PRs but with the added potential for galvanic isolation and inherent voltage transformation. The present invention overcomes standing performance shortcomings in isolated magnetic-less PT-based dc-dc converters, providing a framework for high-efficiency piezoelectric transformer (PT) designs (wherein isolated PTs serve as the primary passive components in isolated dc-dc converters). One of the proposed PT designs is validated in a dc-dc power converter prototype and demonstrates a peak efficiency of 97.5%. The measured performance represents a 17x reduction in loss ratio compared to previous isolated magnetic-less PT-based dc-dc converter designs, and expands the value of piezoelectrics to applications requiring isolation.

Researchers from UC San Diego present a fully-passive, miniaturized, flexible form factor sensor interface titled ZenseTag that uses minimal electronics to read and communicate analog sensor data, directly at radio frequencies (RF). The technology exploits the fundamental principle of resonance, where a sensor's terminal impedance becomes most sensitive to the measured stimulus at its resonant frequency. This enables ZenseTag to read out the sensor variation using only energy harvested from wireless signals. UCSD inventors further demonstrate its implementation with a 15x10mm flexible PCB that connects sensors to a printed antenna and passive RFID ICs, enabling near real-time readout through a performant GUI-enabled software. They showcase ZenseTag's versatility by interfacing commercial force, soil moisture and photodiode sensors. 

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed a headset (e.g., virtual reality headset) in which two imaging modalities, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO), are incorporated with automated eye tracking and optical adjustment capabilities providing a fully automated imaging system in which patients are unaware that images of the retina are being acquired. Imaging takes place while the patient watches a soothing or entertaining video.