Laboratories and Professors
Electronics and Photonics
The research and education area of the Integrated Systems Laboratory (IIS) is microelectronics, optoelectronics and nanotechnologies in general as an interdisciplinary field between electrical engineering and physics. The scientific work includes analysis, design and test of integrated circuits, theory, numerical modeling and physical characterization of semiconductor technologies and devices, and furthermore analysis and simulations of bio-electromagnetic systems.
Professors:
Prof. Luca Benini, Digital Circuits and Systems
Prof. Laura Bégon-Lours, Neuromorphic Electronics with Oxides (NEO)
Prof. Taekwang Jang, Energy-Efficient Circuits and Intelligent
Systems (EECIS)
Prof. Mathieu Luisier, Computational Nanoelectronics (Nano-TCAD)
Prof. Christoph Studer, Integrated Information Processing (IIP)
Prof. Hua Wang, Integrated Devices, Electronics, and Systems (IDEAS)
Researchers at the Institute for Electronics study energy-related devices including solar cells, batteries, LEDs, and photonic crystals with the aim of improving their performance. Their goal is to implement optical and electronic techniques to better understand material and device properties. They apply what they learn from these advanced analytical methods to engineer novel nanomaterials and design next generation device architectures.
Professors:
Prof. Vanessa Wood, Materials and Device Engineering (MaDE)
Adj. Prof. Maksym Yarema, Chemistry and Materials Design (CMD)
The Millimeter-Wave Electronics group, headed by Prof. C. Bolognesi, is an independent laboratory of the Electrical Engineering Department D-ITET. It was formerly affiliated with IEF (Institut für Feldtheorie und Höchstfrequenztechnik), with which it still shares part of the infrastructure.
The research activities of MWE members focus on III-V compound semiconductor devices and processes from modern sub-terahertz applications to all-electronic terahertz sources.
Professor:
Prof. Colombo Bolognesi, Millimeter-Wave Electronics (MWE)
The research activities of IEF members are very diverse and interdisciplinary and range from computational methods in electromagnetics and optics down to the nanometer scale, from antenna design to front-end development in RF and fiber optics, from bio-electromagnetics and sensors to industrial microwaves, and from III-V compound semiconductor devices and processes for modern sub-terahertz applications to all-electronic terahertz sources.
Professors:
Prof. Jürg Leuthold, Photonics and Communication
Adj. Prof. Jasmin Smajic, Physical Modelling and Field Simulations
Researchers at the Photonics Laboratory study the interaction of light with nano-structured materials. In particular, they are interested in controlling and enhancing the light-matter interaction with suitably engineered nanostructures, such as optical antennas or resonators. The manipulation of optical fields at the nanometer scale is important for enhancing the performance and efficiency of photodetectors, light emitting devices and optical sensors.
Professors:
Prof. Lukas Novotny, Photonics
Adj. Prof. Martin Frimmer, Photonics and Electronics
external page https://www.empa.ch/quantum-devices
The group for Low-Dimensional Quantum Electronics at Empa explores the transport properties of low-dimensional hybrid devices. The researchers are in particular interested in the fundamental interactions between electrons, phonons and photons in systems combining molecular compounds with solid-state devices in confined geometries where quantum effects can appear up to room temperature.
Professor:
Prof. Mickaël Perrin, Quantum Devices
external page https://www.empa.ch/atomistic-simulations
The interpretation of experimental results and the comprehensive understanding of nanoscale processes, where quantum effects play a crucial role, demand advanced theoretical support. The mission of the Atomistic Simulations Group at Empa is to integrate multiple levels of theory, including density functional theory, multireference methods, semi-empirical approaches, and classical models, in order to construct realistic atomistic descriptions of nanoscale systems.
Professor:
Adj. Prof. Daniele Passerone, Atomistic Simulations
Information and Communication
At the chair for Mathematical Information Science, research in the general areas of machine learning theory, mathematical signal processing, data science, and statistics is being performed. The researchers have a strong interest in developing a mathematical theory of deep learning.
Professor:
Prof. Helmut Bölcskei, Mathematical Information Science
The mission of the laboratory is to do research and teaching in the field of control engineering.
Professors:
Prof. John Lygeros, Control and Computation
Prof. Florian Dörfler, Complex Systems Control
Prof. Lars Lindemann, Algorithmic Systems Theory
The laboratory integrates the following research sections:
- Digital Systems and Design Automation
The current research focuses on methods to enable generating good-quality hardware designs from high-level programming languages.
- Computer Engineering
The research and teaching activities concentrate on design, engineering methodologies, and tools for networked embedded systems and software. - Computer Security
The research interests revolve around understanding the attack surface of modern computing systems using novel analysis techniques and the design and implementation of secure systems when appropriate.
- Networked Systems
The research interests are centered around complex network management problems, with the larger goal of making current and future networks easier to design, understand and operate. - Distributed Computing
The research interests are a variety of algorithmic and systems aspects in computer science and information technology, currently in particular physical algorithms, wireless networks, multi-core systems, mobile systems, and social networking.
Professors:
Prof. Lana Josipović, Digital Systems and Design Automation (DYNAMO)
Prof. Kaveh Razavi, Computer Security (COMSEC)
Prof. Laurent Vanbever, Networked Systems (NSG)
Prof. Roger Wattenhofer, Distributed Computing (DISCO)
The ISI focusses on research and education in the following areas:
- Information theory, error correcting codes, and their application in communication systems
- Model based detection/estimation in communications and other application areas
- Signal processing with analog circuits
Professors:
Prof. Amos Lapidoth, Information Theory
Prof. Hans-Andrea Loeliger, His group is active in all three areas
The Computer Vision Laboratory, ETH Zurich, works on the computer-based interpretation of 2D and 3D image data sets from conventional and non-conventional image sources.
The lab performs research in the fields of Medical Image Analysis and Visualization, Object Recognition, Gesture Analysis, Tracking, and Scene Understanding and Modeling.
Professor:
Prof. Ender Konukoglu, Biomedical Image Computing (BMIC)
The group's research is in computer architecture, systems, security, and bioinformatics. Their work spans and stretches the boundaries between applications, systems, languages, system software, compilers, and hardware.
Professor:
Prof. Onur Mutlu, SAFARI Research Group
Energy
The scientific field of the Power Systems Laboratory comprises analysis and design of electric and integrated energy systems including their planning, design and operation.
The research focus of the High Voltage Laboratory is the area of technologies for a future sustainable electric energy supply, in particular electric energy transmission.
Professors:
Prof. Christian Franck, High Voltage Laboratory (HVL)
Prof. Gabriela Hug, Power Systems Laboratory (PSL)
The research at the Laboratory for High Power Electronic Systems (HPE) focusses on high power converter systems including operation at medium voltages required for example in future energy distribution for renewable energy sources or in traction applications. A further research focus is on solid state pulse modulator systems for medical applications or accelerators (PSI, CERN).
Professor:
Prof. Jürgen Biela, High Power Electronic Systems
Professor:
Prof. Ulrike Grossner, Advanced Power Semiconductor Laboratory
external page http://www.empa.ch/econversion
Empa's laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage investigates novel materials and concepts for sustainable energy conversion and storage with a focus on next-generation batteries and on synthetic fuels.
Professor:
Adj. Prof. Corsin Battaglia, Materials for Energy Conversion
Biomedical Engineering and Neuroinformatics
The Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI) was established at the University and ETH Zurich at the end of 1995. The mission of the Institute is to discover the key principles by which brains work and to implement these in artificial systems that interact intelligently with the real world.
Professors:
Prof. Benjamin F. Grewe, Neural Learning and Intelligent Systems
Prof. Richard Hahnloser, Birdsong and Natural Language
Prof. Giacomo Indiveri, Neuromorphic Cognitive Systems
Prof. Valerio Mante, Neural Computation and Cognition
Prof. Melika Payvand, Emerging Intelligent Substrates
Prof. Timothée Proix, Neural Dynamics
Prof. Mehmet Fatih Yanik, Neurotechnology
Biomedical Engineering is an interdisciplinary area that combines the expertise of natural sciences and engineering with medicine and biology so as to achieve progresses in healthcare and research. It involves the application of engineering, science and technology to problems arising in medicine and biology. Interacting with medicine and biology, all intersections of engineering and natural sciences (electrical, mechanical, material engineering, informatics, physics, chemistry etc) represent potential areas of biomedical engineering.
Professors:
Prof. Sebastian Kozerke, Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance
Prof. Morteza Aramesh, Single-Molecule and Single-Cell Biophysics
Prof. Klaas Prüssmann, Magnetic Resonance Technology and Methods
Prof. Daniel Razansky, Functional and Molecular Imaging
Prof. Marco Stampanoni, X-ray imaging
Prof. Klaas Enno Stephan, Translational Neuromodelling
Prof. János Vörös, Biosensors and Bioelectronics Laboratory
Adj. Prof. Tomaso Zambelli, Biosensors and Bioelectronics