Events Listing

At the College of Science and Engineering's (CSE) Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, CSE graduate students will have exactly three minutes to explain their research in an engaging and easy-to-understand format. You will hear presentations on a variety of different topics ranging from robotics to health systems and devices. The competition celebrates the innovative research conducted by our graduate students and cultivates their academic, presentation, and research communications skills.

You can attend the event in-person or view it live on Zoom. All registered audience members will receive instructions for joining virtually a day or two before the competition event.

Metamaterials: from invisibility cloak to future extended reality displays       

The invisibility cloak in Harry Potter and the dreams of invisibility as a superpower are no longer fiction. With the invention of metamaterials, they are theoretically and experimentally possible in real life. Metamaterials — materials that are engineered to have properties that are not found in naturally-occurring materials — allow us to overcome physical limitations. Scientists around the world are researching metamaterials that can be used in diverse sectors, including healthcare, optical display, and military affairs. For example, metalenses, which can exceed the physical limitations of light, may facilitate leaps in biology and chemistry. The development of metamaterials has just begun, but their potential is limitless. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of metamaterials and metasurfaces: principles, applications and manufacturing methods towards their science-to-technology transition.

About Professor Rho

Prof. Rho is a Mu-Eun-Jae Endowed Chair Professor and Young Distinguished Professor at POSTECH, Korea, in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. at the UC Berkeley (2013), M.S. at the UIUC (2008) and B.S. at Seoul National University (2007) all in Mechanical Engineering. Prior joining POSTECH, he conducted postdoctoral research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and also worked as a principal investigator (Ugo Fano Fellow) at Argonne National Laboratory. Rho's research group is not only developing a new concept of novel optical nanomaterials having extraordinary eletromagnetic properties, but also realizing engineering device applications including, but not limited to, super-resolution imaging, tunable/active/reconfigurable metasurfaces, next-generation displays, VR/AR/XR devices, radiative cooling devices, unconventional nanofabrications, scalable nanomanufacturing methods and deep-learning-based design methodologies.

IEEE welcomes ECE graduate student Onri to our very first Technical Talk that will take place on Monday, October 17 from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm in 111 Mechanical Engineering Building. Onri will provide an overview of the device hardware for quantum gates and a list of hardware platforms that host them. This will give the audience an idea of what quantum computers look like, what quantum means, and what to look for in terms of controlling or interacting with them.  

RSVP using this link. 

Analytical Modelling of the Switching Dynamics of SiC MOSFETs

Silicon Carbide MOSFETs (SiC MOSFETs) fall into the class of wide band gap (WBG) power devices. These devices are commercially available in the voltage range of 600-3300V and compete with the state-of-the-art Si-insulated gate bipolar junction transistors (IGBTs). Superior material properties of SiC MOSFET lead to smaller die sizes. This results in faster switching transients and lower switching loss. However, it excites device and circuit parasitic that may lead to prolonged oscillation, high device stress, spurious turn-on and EMI-related issues. So, the benefit of using SiC MOSFET as a power device comes with numerous design challenges resulting in slow commercial adaptation. It is predicted that the overall market share of WBG devices (SiC and GaN together) will be roughly 10% of the total market for power semiconductors by 2025. To overcome the design challenges and fully utilise the benefits of fast-switching SiC MOSFETs, a better understanding of switching dynamics is essential. However, the switching dynamics of SiC MOSFET are different compared to its Si counterpart due to the highly non-linear device characteristics and participation of circuit parasitic in the process. In this talk, we will discuss our recent work on developing an analytical model of the switching dynamics for hard and soft transitions of SiC MOSFET by simplifying the complex non-linear dynamics predicted by the behavioural model. The developed model, given the device-related parameters extracted from the data sheet, estimated or measured circuit parasitic, can predict lost switching energy, rate of change of device voltage etc., necessary for a successful power converter design through computation with sufficient accuracy.

About Professor Basu

Kaushik Basu received the BE degree from the Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpore, India, in 2003, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 2005, and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 2012. He was a Design Engineer with Cold Watt India in 2006 and an Electronics and Control Engineer with Dynapower Corporation USA from 2013-to 15. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science. He served as the Technical Program Committee Vice-Chair of IEEE ECCE 2019 and 2022. In 2019, he received the Professor Priti Shankar Teaching Award from IISc. As a co-author, he received the Second Best Prize Paper Award from IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification in 2021. He is IEEE senior member and is the founding chair of both IEEE PELS and IES Bangalore Chapter. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. His research interests include most aspects of Power Electronic converter design from a few kW to a few MW for applications ranging from space, grid integration of renewables and storage to fast charging of electric vehicles.

View the list of employers recruiting during the virtual fair now. You can sign up for time slots to speak individually with companies beginning Friday, Sept. 30, 2022 at 8 a.m. Central Time. Be sure to set up your Handshake profile completely in order to view available one-on-one meetings. Please visit the Virtual Career Fair web page for all of the fair details and information. (As the event has passed, the link to the Virtual Career Fair web page has been taken down.)

Handshake provides features that will allow you to connect personally with employers. Virtual fair features include:

• No waiting in line! You can pre-register for a time to speak with employers via video chat.
• Speak with employers from the comfort of your home.
• Research employers prior to the fair, as well as during the fair, by entering their group session room.
• Speak with the CSE Career Center during the Virtual Career Fair to receive help with your questions.

Read the Virtual Career Fair Preparation Guide (PDF) for helpful information.
Additional prep videos posted on the CSE Career Center's Youtube playlist. You may access CSE’s drop-in hours or schedule an appointment with a career counselor as well.

Prof. Rakesh Kumar from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will speak on computer architecture. 

IEEE is glad to host its very first social of the 2022 fall semester. Join us on September 29th from 6:30 - 7:30 pm for board games, dinner, and the chance to hang out with your fellow ECE peers! We will have games both digital and analog. You will also get a chance to meet as many members as you could want and talk school hobbies and much more. Excited to see you there! You can pre-register here.

From the Semiconductor Research Corporation website: The SRC-NIST nCORE (nanoelectronic COmputing REsearch) program sets and aggressive research agenda for Emerging Semiconductor Technologies. Examples include advanced spintronic materials and devices, defect-engineered ferroelectrics for emerging memory devices, exploring new materials and physics concepts based on a first principles, revolutionary thermal management solutions, innovative metrology, etc. Research vectors include novel computing paradigms, fundamental material, device, and interconnect research, advanced manufacturing and nanofabrication, innovative metrology and characterization, and computational models.

The main goal of the webinar is to present the “success stories” from SRC’s nCORE program with NSF, NIST, and industry partners, and identify a compelling research agenda for the next wave of semiconductor manufacturing based on the Decadal Plan for Semiconductors. 

IEEE Women in Engineering will be hosting a picnic. Join WIE on September 28th at 5:00 pm at East River Flats for fun outdoor games great food, and an amazing socializing opportunity. WIE will provide food and drinks. Bring friends and your blanket and come meet as many members as you could want and talk school hobbies and much more. Excited to see you there! Please  RSVP here. 

IEEE UMN hosts its weekly meetings every other Monday at 7:30 PM. All are welcome to join as the student group plans, discusses, and organizes events and networking opportunities. This is a great way to become involved in the decisions that IEEE makes!