Three Birds With One Stone: High-Frequency Instrumentation For Semiconductor Device, Radar and Communication System Measurements
Abstract
Funding is requested to purchase scientific instrumentation that will be shared among five laboratories in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The experiments enabled by the new instrumentation will dramatically advance multiple existing research projects and collaborations among the investigators in three major areas of electrical engineering: semiconductor devices, communications, and radar systems. The new instrumentation will augment the research results of three currently funded DoD projects: 1.) [AFOSR] Improving the Understanding of Heat and Carrier Transport in Electronic Heterostructure Devices by Proper Treatment of Boundary Effects in Wide Bandgap Structures including AIGaN; 2.) [AFOSR] Quantum Engineering of States in Heterostructure Detectors for Enhanced Performance; 3.) [ARO MURI] Near and Far-Field Interfaces to DNA-Guided Nanostructures from RF to Lightwave: Exploiting the Spectrum. In addition, with the new instrumentation the investigators will validate, showcase and bring to new heights their research results, as well as attract additional research funding through 10 initial experiments that should impact 23 areas of interest to the Department of Defense (see Table I). The team of 11 investigators, 7 of whom are women, consists of researchers who actively contribute to making discoveries in solid state electronics, electromagnetics, communications radar systems as well as an expert in STEM engineering education. The investigators have received support for their research through multiple DoD and NSF awards and have coauthored 164 publications related to this proposal (see References). The research activities will heavily involve Ph.D., M.S., and undergraduate students, including those from under-represented minority groups, who are well represented at UIC. UIC ranks first among a group of eight universities in the nation, all of which are public, that are considered minority serving and Carnegie Research I, based upon the most recent HSI data and the NSF 2014 research funding report. Graduate students will take active roles in the research activities associated with the proposed instrumentation purchases as part of their dissertation research. Undergraduate students will be involved through: (1) the course ECE 392 Undergraduate Research; (2) the Guaranteed Internship Program of the College of Engineering during the Summer semesters; (3) the Chancellor s Undergraduate Research Program; (4) Honors College Activities; (5) visits to research labs during lectures (see included letter of collaboration). Outreach activities will be coordinated through the College of Engineering, which attracts about 3,000 students from local high schools and their instructors (see included letter of collaboration) to UIC. Outreach activities will be coordinated also through the advisors of the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers, who collectively outreached to over 500 middle and high school students in the Chicagoland area during 2015-2016 (see included letter of collaboration). Minority students will be attracted through various forms of advertisement, including announcements in the courses taught by the investigators. The investigators have a strong record of involving undergraduate students, including underrepresented minorities, in their research activities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 11, 2018
- Source ID
- W911NF1710525
Entities
People
- Danilo Erricolo
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of Illinois at Chicago