Research - Laboratories

Applied Electromagnetics Laboratory

This laboratory is devoted to problems in experimental electromagnetics with a primary focus on industrial electrostatics, sensors, and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Current projects include a study of spark energies from insulating surfaces, studies of the electrostatic properties of insulating materials, development of a circular electrode array plasma-torch system, and charge-control systems for MEMS actuators.

Associated Faculty: Horenstein

Biological Information Processing Laboratory

Work carried out in this laboratory is principally concerned with the wavelet analysis of biological signals. Particular examples include the analysis of fractal behavior of neural spike trains in hearing and vision; the analysis of the human heart rate and the differentiation of pathological from normal heart rhythms; and information transmission in biological sensory systems.

Associated Faculty: Teich

Biomedical Optics and Biophotonics Laboratory

The core theme of biomedical optics/ photonics is minimally invasive optical diagnostics and therapeutics. This laboratory focuses on the development of optics-based technologies for clinical applications and biomedical research. Current research topic areas include:

• Advanced spectroscopic technologies for tissue diagnosis
• Noninvasive measurement of drug concentrations in tissue
• Interstitial laser thermotherapy and photodynamic therapy
• Computational methods for modeling optical transport in tissue
• Optical interferometry for imaging nerve activation

Associated Faculty: Bigio

Broadband Wireless Communications Laboratory

This laboratory supports research projects on the design, theory, and prototyping of broadband wireless communication systems. The major focus is on the use of infrared light as the transmission medium for high-datarate indoor wireless local-area networks. The laboratory includes facilities for the fabrication and testing of experimental prototypes as well as computing resources for system design and analysis.

Associated Faculty: Carruthers

Computational Electronics Laboratory

The Computational Electronics Laboratory (CEL) is equipped with stateof- the-art computing tools. The lab has two computer clusters, one XP1000 Alpha Cluster (8 CPUs) running True UNIX 64, and an AMD Athalon MP Cluster (13 CPUs) running Linux. The lab also operates a variety of high performance PCs and printers. The Computational Electronics Group develops software to study semiconductor materials and to perform electronics and optoelectronics device simulation. Commercial simulation packages, such as ISE Genesis and Silvaco Virtual Wafer Fab are currently employed.

Associated Faculty: Bellotti

Computer Architecture and Automated Design Laboratory

Work focuses on experimental computer architecture, particularly on the application of emerging technology to computationally intensive application. Projects include developing design tools for application specific coprocessors, designing MPP router switches, vision computers, and the application of configurable computing to bioinformatics.

Associated Faculty: Herbordt

Functorial Electromagnetics Laboratory

The Functorial Electromagnetic Analysis Lab considers the difficulties encountered in the finite element analysis of three-dimensional electromagnetic fields that cannot be anticipated through experience with two-dimensional simulations. The lab has focussed its efforts in the development of Whitney form techniques, homology calculations, algorithms for total magnetic scalar potentials in multiply-connected regions, helicity functional techniques, and data structures based on semi-simplicial objects. Torsion invariants of complexes and rational homotopy theory are currently being exploited in the context of direct and inverse three-dimensional problems such as impedance tomography and magnetic field synthesis.

Associated Faculty: Kotiuga

Imaging Science Laboratory (ISL)

Affiliated with the Boston University Center for Space Physics, the ISL applies state-of-the-art optical imaging technology to the study of the Earth, Moon, planets and comets. Activities include equipment design and fabrication, field campaigns to observing sites world-wide, and digital signal processing.

Associated Faculty: Mendillo

Integrated DSP Environments and Architectures Laboratory (IDEA)

This laboratory conducts research in digital signal processing and its integration into application systems. Issues of interest include DSP algorithms, knowledge-based systems, software architectures for integrated DSP, software environments for the development of integrated DSP systems, integration of numeric and symbolic processing, statistical signal processing, and multidimensional signal processing. This research is carried out in the context of many applications, ranging from the interpretation of musical signals to the analysis of spread spectrum signals and the knowledge-based decomposition of electromyographic (EMG) signals.

Associated Faculty: Nawab

Lightwave Technology Laboratory

This lab is one of the few university laboratories capable of designing, fabricating, and characterizing silica optical fibers. The research activities of this laboratory focus on new processing techniques for optical fibers and planar waveguides, high power optical fiber lasers, and a variety of optical fiber sensors. The components of this facility consist of a fabrication laboratory with three glass lathes including a new stateof- the-art Nextrom MCVD system, an optical laboratory with numerous pump lasers for fiber lasers, five isolation tables, and an 8m optical fiber draw tower, newly outfitted with Nextrom widing and control equipment. In addition, there is a CVD laboratory for studies of thin films.

Associated Faculty: Morse

Magnetic and Optical Devices Laboratory (MODL)

Properties and applications of magnetic and magneto-optical materials are studied using optical, electrical, and computational methods in the MODL. Recent work has included micromagnetics modeling, using supercomputer facilities, for commercial read/write heads, GMR memory devices, and nana-structured magnetic materials. Kerr and Faraday effect imaging are used to measure the structure and dynamics of magnetic thin films and hard magnetic wires.

Associated Faculty: Ruane, Humphrey

Multi-Dimensional Signal Processing (MDSP) Laboratory

The MDSP Lab conducts research in the areas of multidimensional and multiresolution signal and image processing and estimation, and geometric-based estimation. The applications that motivate this research include, but are not limited to, problems arising in automatic target detection and recognition, geophysical inverse problems (such as finding oil and analyzing the atmosphere), and medical estimation problems (such as tomography and MRI). The general goal is to develop efficient methods for the extraction of information from diverse data sources in the presence of uncertainty. The lab.s approach is based on the development of statistical models for both observations, prior knowledge, and the subsequent use of these models for optimal or near-optimal processing.

Associated Faculty: Karl

Multimedia Communications Laboratory

The focus of this laboratory is the enabling technology for distributed and multimedia applications. Research includes investigation of distributed modes interaction among wireless computers; aggregation and clustering techniques for scaling large-scale Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) and Sensor Networks; communication systems for continuous media; and conceptual and physical database organizations. The laboratory is equipped a high-performance simulation environment and a wireless testbed for proof-of-concept prototype development.

Associated Faculty: Little

Near-Field Spectroscopy Laboratory

Near-Field Microscopy/Spectroscopy is being developed as a new technique to extend the resolution of optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit, bringing a new level of optical characterization. Near-field optical microscopy has application to many areas of materials and device development, and this laboratory will serve as a resource for researchers throughout Boston University as well as industry partners. Emphasis is currently placed on the optical characterization of semiconductor devices and biological materials. In particular, this includes imaging laser diode emission and material-defect and compositional analysis for semiconductor applications.

Associated Faculty: Goldberg, Ünlü

Laboratory of Networking and Information Systems

This lab is involved in providing novel perspectives on modern networking issues, including scalability, heterogeneity, and performance. The lab is equipped with sophisticated hardware and software and promotes research into the fields of network synchronization, mobile computing, Internet traffic engineering, distributed Web caching, and coding theoretic approaches to real-time information reconciliation.

Associated Faculty: Starobinski, Trachtenberg

Picosecond Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL)

This state-of-the-art optical characterization facility was recently established. The Picosecond Spectroscopy Laboratory provides excitation sources, spectrometers, and microwave electronic test equipment for the investigation of the linear and nonlinear optical properties of materials and devices. The research emphasis in this laboratory is on high-speed photodetectors, particularly time-resolved characterization of photodiodes.

Associated Faculty: Ünlü

Quantum Imaging Laboratory

Research in the Quantum Imaging Laboratory focuses on photonic imaging systems that make use of the special properties of nonclassical light. Experiments are conducted on nonlinear optical parametric down-conversion; quantum coherence; quantum imaging; quantum interferometry and microscopy; and quantum communications and cryptography.

Associated Faculty: Saleh, Sergienko, Teich

Radio Communications and Plasma Research Laboratories

Field experiments are conducted in this lab using ground-based facilities and spacecraft-borne instruments to investigate radio-wave propagation and interactions with ionospheric plasmas, with applications to establishing artificial radio communication paths. Laboratory experiments with a large, toroidal plasma device are also conducted to study the microwave interactions with magnetoplasmas, simulating and crosschecking the results obtained in the field experiments.

Associated Faculty: Lee

Reliable Computing Laboratory

Members of the Reliable Computing Laboratory conduct research on a broad variety of topics, including the design of computer chips; efficient hardware testing at the chip, board, and system levels; functional software testing; efficient signal processing algorithms; coding and decoding; fault-tolerant message routing for multiprocessor systems; and the design of reliable computer networks.

Associated Faculty: Karpovsky, Levitin, Roziner

Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL)

An instructional and research lab, the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) supports courses and research on the economical design of reliable software for large-scale and embedded computerbased systems. The lab is comprised of more than twenty-five Silicon Graphics and Gateway 2000 networked workstations, plus four Motorola embedded computer development systems. The laboratory provides a network of workstations running Windows XP and provides students with state-of-the art development and modeling tools for the design, implementation and testing of distributed software systems.

Associated Faculty: Brackett

Visual Information Processing (VIP) Laboratory

The VIP Laboratory provides computational and visualization infrastructure for research in the area of visual information processing. The particular topics of interest are: manipulation, compression, transmission and retrieval of visual information, whether in the form of still images, video sequences, or multimedia data. In addition to standard monoscopic (2-D) images, also stereoscopic and multiscopic (3-D) images are studied. The primary application of this research is in the nextgeneration multimedia communications: life-like (3-D), efficient (low bit rate), reliable (error-resilient), and flexible (object-based). The VIP Laboratory is equipped with a network of state-of-theart workstations to serve computational needs, while its visualization infrastructure includes 2-D and 3-D digital cameras and capture systems, as well as 3-D displays (shuttered and 9-view automultiscopic "Synthagram").

Associated Faculty: Konrad

VLSI and Neural Networks Systems (VNNS) Laboratory

The VNNS group designs, builds, and tests innovative architectures that span a wide variety of VLSI applications in electrical and biological fields. Chips designed using digital, analog, and subthreshold methodologies are realized using CMOS BiCMOS and Bipolar technologies. Applications include neural-net image processing, integrated photonic devices and parallel photonic testing, automatic partial-valued dynamic logic synthesis, single-chip large-molecule and DNA analyzers, and neural tissue interface chips. The group is equipped with a full suite of design tools and testing instrumentation for analog and digital systems.

Associated Faculty: Hubbard

Wide Band Gap Semiconductors Laboratory

In this laboratory, we investigate the growth, fabrication and characterization of devices based on the family of IIINitride semiconductors. The materials are grown by MBE, MOCVD, HVPE and Gas cluster Ion-beam deposition (GCIB). The current focus is in the development of Optical Devices (UV-LEDs, UV-LDs, Optical Modulators, Detectors), Electronic Devices (High Power Diodes, Transistors and Thyristors) and Electromechanical Devices (SiC/IIINitride MEMS sensors). Materials physics issues are also addressed and the group collaborates closely with Professor Enrico Bellotti in the area of theoretical modeling, Professor Karl Ludwig (Physics) in the area of materials structure and Professor Kevin Smith (Physics) in the area of electronic structure.

Associated Faculty: Moustakas