Microsystems Technology Laboratories

Making frequency-hopping radios practicalNew hardware could lead to wireless devices that identify and exploit unused transmission frequencies, using radio spectrum much more efficiently.

Picture-perfectQuick, efficient chip cleans up common flaws in amateur photographs.

Rare earth oxides make water-repellent surfaces that lastCeramic forms of hydrophobic materials could be far more durable than existing coatings or surface treatments.

Researchers demonstrate record-setting p-type transistorNew design for a basic component of all computer chips boasts the highest ‘carrier mobility’ yet measured.

Tiny compound semiconductor transistor could challenge silicon’s dominanceMIT researchers develop the smallest indium gallium arsenide transistor ever built.

Making ‘nanospinning’ practicalNanofibers have a dizzying range of possible applications, but they’ve been prohibitively expensive to make. MIT researchers hope to change that.

Department snapshot: Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceEECS places renewed emphasis on interdisciplinary research, partnerships with alumni and industry, and experiential learning.

Medical devices powered by the ear itselfFor the first time, researchers power an implantable electronic device using an electrical potential — a natural battery — deep in the inner ear.

Del Alamo receives SRC 2012 Technical Excellence Award

MIT-developed ‘microthrusters’ could propel small satellitesAs small as a penny, these thrusters run on jets of ion beams.

Research update: Chips with self-assembling rectanglesNew technique allows production of complex microchip structures in one self-assembling step.

New chip captures power from multiple sourcesSystem developed at MIT could combine power harvested from light, heat and vibrations to run monitoring systems.

Donghyun Jin awarded the ISPSD ’12 Charitat Award-Runner-up

Teaching self-assembling structures a new trickMIT researchers produce 3-D configurations that could lead to new microchips and other devices.

L. Rafael Reif selected as MIT’s 17th presidentAs provost since 2005, the president-elect has inspired innovation and played a critical role in the financial stewardship of the Institute.

Del Alamo is awarded 2012 Intel Outstanding Researcher Award in Emerging Research Devices

Transistors promise more powerful logic, more logical powerResearch could affect U.S. manufacturing indirectly, by helping introduce products difficult to build elsewhere, and directly, by reducing production costs.

Going with the flowBiomimetic pressure sensors help guide oceangoing vessels.

Bulović named director of the Microsystems Technology LaboratoriesAssumes role previously held by Chandrakasan.

Chandrakasan named head of electrical engineering and computer scienceSucceeds Grimson as leader of MIT's largest academic department

Donald Troxel, longtime EECS professor, dies at 76Taught MIT's 6.111 course for many years

Weinstein receives DARPA Young Faculty Award

Mechanical devices stamped on plasticMicroelectromechanical devices gave us the Wii and the digital movie projector. MIT researchers have found a new way to make them.

Self-powered sensorsHarvesting electricity from small temperature differences could enable a new generation of electronic devices that don’t need batteries

Straining forwardNanowires made of ‘strained silicon’ — silicon whose atoms have been pried slightly apart — show how to keep increases in computer power coming.

Life after siliconResearchers in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories are making the case for using exotic materials to help microchips keep improving.