Prof. Pai-Yen Chen’s research group is dedicated to applied electromagnetics, RF, microwave and optical technologies, wireless sensors and integrated systems, with versatile applications in internet-of-things (IoTs), telehealth, telemedicine, wireless power transfer, energy harvesting, and future generations of wireless communication systems including 5G and beyond. We are also dedicated to development of nanoelectronic, plasmonic, and quantum devices that enable the next generation of sensing, information processing and renewable energy applications. We are always looking for new optimal solutions and interdisciplinary co-design philosophy (physics-material-device-circuit) for integrated systems and monolithic architectures spanning a wide range of electromagnetic spectrum.
We are currently looking for postdoc and PhD students who are interested in electromagnetics, RF antennas and circuits, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, underwater communication, machine learning, deep learning, sensors and nondestructive evaluation. We appreciate your interest in our research and in the activities of our group!
NEWS
3-5-2024 Prof. Chen received the UIC Researcher of the Year Award! Awardees will be honored at a ceremony in April at the Chicago’s Field Museum as part of the inaugural UIC Research Week. Thank you UIC and my colleagues for for wholehearted support [UIC Today]. Thank you, Jenny Fontaine, for the cool photo!
2-9-2024 Congratulations to Dr. Nabeel Alsaab on successfully defending his PhD thesis. Prof. Alssab will join Qassim University as an Assistant Professor in March 2024.
2-8-2024 Our paper on “Porous Silver Nanowire Composites with Strain-Insensitive Conductance and Ultralow Percolation Thresholds for Wireless Stretchable Bioelectronics Phase-Separated Porous Nanocomposites for Wireless Stretchable Bioelectronics” in collaboration with Prof. Zheng Yan’s group has been accepted by Nature Nanotechnology. Congratulations to Zhilu, Minye and Yichong!
12-27-2023 Prof. Chen is appointed as Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Sensors Council for the 2024-2026 period.
11-22-2023 Prof. Chen received the IEEE Chicago Section Distinguished Senior R&D Award for the year 2023, in recognition and appreciation of your achievements in research on Electromagnetics, Antennas and Circuits, Sensor Devices and Systems, and Internet of Things. Thank you, IEEE Chicago Section.
9-8-2023 Our latest work on new hardware security has been published in Science Advances [web]. We propose a new lightweight and robust ElectroMagnetic Unclonable function (EMUF) exploiting high entropy near the self-dual emitter-absorber singularity of non-Hermitian systems.
7-5-2023 We are guest editing a special issue on “Emerging Technologies in Electromagnetic Wave-based Sensing and Imaging” to be published by the FIRST volume of IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Sensors. Deadline for contributions is November 30. Call For Papers: https://ieee-jsas.org/call-for-papers/. Information for Authors at IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Sensors web page can be found at http://ieee-jsas.org/. Guest Editors: Profs. Pai-Yen Chen, Michael C. T. Wu, Chun-Hsing Li, You-Chia Chang, and Chia-Chan Chang.
6-1-2023 Congratulations to Dr. Minye Yang on successfully defending his PhD thesis. Prof. Yang will join Xi’an Jiaotong University as an Assistant Professor on August 16, 2023.
6-1-2023 Congratulations to Dr. Zhilu Ye on successfully defending her PhD thesis. Prof. Ye will join Xi’an Jiaotong University as an Assistant Professor on August 16, 2023.
5-18-2023 Prof. Chen now serves as an Associated Editor of Associate Editor of the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.
4-27-2023 Our latest work on new wireless security has been published in Nature Communications [web]. The high entropy inherent at the exceptional point of a non-Hermitian system makes a powerful true random number generator for NFC, smat tags and RFID [UIC today; TechXplore]. This research is also highlighted by National Science Foundation (NSF) [NSF News].
8-1-2022 Congratulations to Zhilu Ye and Minye Yang, Yichong Ren, and Yuzhu Ouyang for winning the Second Prize in the Student Design Contest at the 2021 IEEE AP-S Student Paper Competition, with a prototype of electrically-small, wearable Huygens dipole antenna [UIC ECE]. Bravo!
3-17-2022 Our collaborative research appearing in ACS Nano [web] demonstrates that a breathable, reusable and flexible smart facemask can be used to wirelessly monitor coughs and face mask wearing. We envision that this invention can mitigate the spread of infectious respiratory diseases during a pandemic and also facilitate health condition monitoring in clinical practice and telemedicine. News press: [Nanowerk; ACS Twitter; UIC ECE]
2-7-2022 Prof. Chen and other ECE researchers (4 in electromagnetics) are included on an Elsevier list of the top 2% of scientists in their fields [web].
12-9-2021 Prof. Chen now serves as an Associated Editor of Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.
10/15/2021: Call for Short Courses/Workshops/Tutorials at the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting. Several short courses, workshops, and tutorials on topics of special and current interest will be solicited by the technical program committee and organized for the conference. In addition, colleagues who wish to organize a short course, workshop or tutorial should contact Zhen Peng (zvpeng@illinois.edu) and Pai-Yen Chen (pychen@uic.edu) by January 20, 2022.
8-25-2021: Congratulations to Liang for being selected as Finalist for 2021 IEEE AP-S Student Paper Competition. We sincerely invite you for the presentation.
6-19-2021: Prof. Chen was among 2021 Emerging Leaders highlighted by IOP Measurement Science and Technology [web]. Thanks to Dr. Ian Forbes at IOP Publishing for the kind highlight.
6-4-2021: Congratulations to Liang and Xuecong for being selected as 1st Pace in the 2021 IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (IEEE WPTC) Student Paper Contest.
5-26-2021: Congratulations to Dr. Liang Zhu on successfully defending his PhD thesis. Dr. Zhu will join X-wave Innovations Inc. in Geithersburg, MD on June 1, 2021.
5-17-2021: Congratulations to Liang and Xuecong for being selected as Finalist for the 2021 IEEE Wireless Power Transfer Conference (IEEE WPTC) Student Paper Competition. We sincerely invite you for the presentation: “Transparent and flexible self-dual antennas for hybrid inductive/capacitive and radiative power transfer.”
5-5-2021: We are organizing a special session on Machine Learning for electromagnetic, RF and microwave applications at the 2021 IEEE Conference on Antenna Measurements and Application (IEEE CAMA); https://2021ieeecama.org/. This special session is now soliciting good quality papers. Thanks!
5-5-2021: Prof. Chen received the College of Engineering Faculty Research Award. Thank you, UIC College of Engineering!
4-30-2021: Congratulations to Liang Zhu for receiving the Young Scientist Award from the 2021 URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, which will be held in Rome, Italy, from August 28 to September 4, 2021.
12-13-2020: Bridge to Faculty Opening. The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) invites applications for a Bridge to the Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). This position will begin on August 16, 2021 [web].
11-08-2020: Profs. Francesco Andriulli, Pai-Yen Chen, Danilo Erricolo and Jian-Ming Jin are the Guest Editors of the Special Issue on “Machine Learning in Antenna Design, Modeling, and Measurements” to be published by the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. Deadline for contributions is March 31, 2021 [web].
7-13-2020: Our research paper entitled “Pencil-Paper On-Skin Electronics,” in collaboration with Prof. Yan Zheng at the University of Missouri, has been accepted for publication by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This work was widely reported by a number of social media [Science Daily; Futurity]
1-1-2020: Dr. Chen serves as Committee Member of the AP-S Young Professionals.
12-6-2019 Congratulations to Dr. Mehdi Hajizadegan on successfully defending his PhD dissertation! Thanks to Prof. Erricolo and Prof. Uslenghi for serving on thesis committees of my first two students. Dr. Sakhdari and Dr. Hajizadegan [UIC Twitter]. Dr. Hajizadegan will join University of Illinois Health and become an Entrepreneurial Lead in the NSF I-Corps program. Dr. Sakhdari will take the Principle Technologist position in Timken Corp..
12-5-2019 The University of Illinois at Chicago invites applications for a Bridge to the Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Andrew Electromagnetics Laboratory, to begin August 16, 2020. Bridge to the Faculty is a new postdoctoral program designed to recruit scholars with the goal of transitioning them to faculty members after two years. This position is looking for a dynamic postdoctoral research associate with experience in Electromagnetics and Wireless Communication [web]. Apply now at ece.uic.edu.
11-18-2019 Congratulations to Dr. Maryam Sakhdari on successfully defending her PhD dissertation [UIC Twitter]!
9-25-2019 Our paper “Experimental observation of PT-symmetry breaking near divergent exceptional points” has been published in Physical Review Letters [web]. See also press releases at [Nanowerk; UIC CoE News; UIC Engineering Twitter].
8-15-2019 Our News & Views on “Exceptional points enhance wireless readout” has been published in Nature Electronics [web]!
8-5-2019 Our paper on epsilon‐near‐zero supercoupling in collaboration with Prof. Yue Li at Tsinghua University has been selected as the inside front cover of Advanced Theory and Simulations [web]!
3-14-2019 We are pleased to announce that the IEEE Chicago Sensors Chapter has been formed in the Chicago metropolitan area [web]! The Chapter will regularly invite IEEE Sensors Council Distinguished Lecturers and renowned scientists to give seminar talks. We will hold mini-workshops with local IEEE members in the Chicago metropolitan area. For further information or to find out about volunteer opportunities contact Prof. Chen.
2-27-2019 Prof. Chen was awarded the ACES (Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society) Early Career Awardfor “contributions to theoretical analysis and modeling of linear and nonlinear electromagnetic phenomena at micro- and nanoscale.”
1-24-2019 Congratulations to Dr. Nasser Al-Khaldi who has defensed his PhD and will take the faculty position in Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Jubail Industrial College in Saudi Arabia!
11-2-2018 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Enhanced sensitivity in non-Hermitian RF and optical sensors,” at CUNY Advanced Science Research Center. Thanks to Prof. Andrea Alu for the invitation!
8-12-2018 Prof. Chen joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Andrew Electromagnetics Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
4-24-2018 Prof. Chen was awarded the College of Engineering Research Excellence Award!
4-12-2018 Our paper on “Generalized Parity-Time Symmetry Condition For Enhanced Sensor Telemetry” has been accepted by Nature Electronics! [web; View and News; Science Daily; WSU CoE News]
4-9-2018 Prof. Chen received the Raj Mittra Travel Grant (RMTG) Award in IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society!
3-24-2018 Congratulations to Mehdi Hajizadegan for being selected as a Honorable Mention of student paper competition in 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.
Prof. Chen explained basics of radio waves and antenna, as well as how to make electronic devices communicate in the wireless world. The photo was taken in the Radio Science Lab in the STEM Day [web]).
1-19-2018 Prof. Chen received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award from the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) program, for the proposed research on sensors for wireless healthcare and IoTs [WSU CoE News; WSU Div. Research News].
12-14-2017 Congratulations to Liang Zhu, Maryam Sakhdari, and Mehdi Hajizadegan for receiving the 2018 USNC-URSI Student Fellowship Award.
12-14-2017 Congratulations to Mehdi Hajizadegan for receiving the Olbrot Travel Award.
12-1-2017 Prof. Chen now serves as an Associated Editor of Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification (IEEE JRFID) [web].
11-24-2017 Prof. Chen now serves as an Associated Editor of Associate Editor of the IEEE Sensors Journal [web].
11-22-2017 Prof. Chen was selected as the recipient of the 2018 SPIE Rising Researcher award [SPIE, WSU CoE news].
10-30-2017 Prof. Chen serves as Vice Chair: Chapter IV (Microwave Theory and Techniques Soc., MTT-S) of IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section.
8-16-2017 Prof. Chen was selected as the recipient of the 2017 IEEE Sensors Council Early Career (Young Professional) Award for “pioneering contributions and innovations in the development of concepts and applications of wireless and non-invasive sensors, and electromagnetic theory for radio-frequency, terahertz, and optical sensors [WSU CoE news; IEEE].”
5-22-2017 Nanowerk highlights our recent papers on graphene smart contact lenses [web].
5-16-2017 Prof. Chen becomes an Associated Editor of IEEE Journal of Electromagnetics, RF, and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology (IEEE J-ERM) [web].
5-16-2017 Congratulations to Maryam Sakhdari for receiving the prestigious Thomas C. Rumble Fellowship Award!
5-3-2017 Prof. Chen has been elevated to be IEEE Senior Member!
4-6-2017 Congratulations to Maryam Sakhdari for being selected as a Honorable Mention of student paper competition in 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.
4-6-2017 Congratulations to Mehdi Hajizadegan for being selected as a Honorable Mention of student paper competition in 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.
4-2017 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Ultrasensitive and Non-invasive Graphene Nanobiosensors,” at University of Nebraska Lincoln. Thanks, Prof. Christos Argyropoulos for the invitation!
4-7-2017 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Loss and Noise-Immune Wireless Microsensors,” at Texas Technological University. Thanks, Prof. Changzhi Li for the invitation!
3-3-2017 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Loss and Noise-Immune Wireless Microsensors,” at Maxim Integrated Inc.. Thanks, Dr. Jonathan Hung for the invitation!
2-16-2017 Prof. Chen will be on the editorial board of Advanced Electromagnetics.
12-26-2016 Prof. Chen will present “All-plasmonic Detection and Harvest of Light,” at University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Shanghai, China. Thanks, Prof. Sung-Liang Chen for the invitation!
11-18-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to Nano Seminar “Ultrasensitive and Non-invasive Graphene Nanobiosensors,” at University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Thanks, Prof. Pei-Cheng Ku for the invitation!
11-3-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Graphene Plasmonics and Nanoelectromagnetism for Biosensing Applications,” at the NanoScience and Technology Center of University of Central Florida. Thanks, Prof. Saiful Khondaker for the invitation!
10-5-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to serve as the Technical Program Committee of META 2017, 8th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics to be held in Incheon-Seoul, Korea.
9-28-2016 Our paper “Self-Powered and Transparent All-Graphene Biosensor” has been selected as the Best Paper Award for the IEEE Sensors 2016 Conference (flagship conference of the IEEE Sensors Council).
9-1-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Graphene Nanoelectromagnetism: Plasmonic, Photonic and Biosensing Applications,” at Michigan Technological University. Thanks, Prof. Ramy El-Ganainy for the invitation!
7-21-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to seminar talk “Nanoelectromagnetism: Plasmonics, Electromagnetics, and Circuits,” at Air Force Research Laboratory. Thanks, Dr. Shin Mou for the invitation!
6-6-2016 Nanowerk highlights our recent papers on graphene sensing frequency-modulator and self-powered wireless sensor. Check our interview with [Nanowerk].
4-18-2016 Our recent paper “Chemical-sensitive graphene modulator with memory effect for internet-of-things applications,” has been selected as the Feature Article on the homepage of the new Nature journal [Microsystems & Nanoengineering].
4-11-2016 Our recent paper “Giant photoresponsivity of midinfrared hyperbolic metamaterials in the photon-assisted-tunneling regime,” has been selected as Editors’ Suggestion of Physical Review Applied.
3-26-2016 Congratulations to Maryam Sakhdari for being selected as a Finalist of student paper competition in 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.
3-26-2016 Congratulations to Mehdi Hajizadegan for being selected as a Finalist of student paper competition in 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.
3-26-2016 Prof. Chen was invited to IEEE seminar talk “Graphene Nanoelectromagnetism: Plasmonic, Electromagnetic, and Circuit Properties,” at University of Texas at Austin.
12-7-2015 Prof. Chen and collaborators (Dr. Farhat and Prof. Bagci) are invited to present in the IOP Nanotechnology Discussion Webinar on Nanophotonics on 7th December 2-3 pm GMT. We will discuss the interplay among photons, plasmons, and phonons in graphene [web].
11-12-2015 Prof. Chen was invited to present a seminar talk “Plasmonics and Metamaterials: Novel Architectures to Manipulate and Enhance Light-Matter Interactions” in Physics Colloquium at the Wayne State University.
9-25-2015 Prof. Chen was invited to present a seminar talk “Nanoantennas, Metasurfaces and Metamaterials to Manipulate and Enhance Light-Matter Interactions” in Optics Society of America (OSA) at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.
4-28-2015 Prof. Chen was invited to present his research “Nanoantenna for Light-Wave Mixing, Rectification, Sensing, and Energy Harvesting” in IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section Spring Conference.
4-16-2015 Our paper (P. Y. Chen*, M. Farhat, and H. Bagci, “Graphene metascreen for designing compact infrared absorbers with enhanced bandwidth”) has been published in Nanotechnology, highlighted by Nanotechweb, and selected as front cover of Nanotechnology.
4-13-2015 Check Prof. Chen’s interview with EE Web Community [web]! The outreach mission is to encourage more young people to pursue their engineering careers.
2-1-2015 Our paper (H. Huang, P. Y. Chen, and D. Akinwande, “Frequency Hopped Wireless Passive Sensing System with Harmonic Transponder Antenna Sensor”) is selected as the Finalist in the Student Paper Competition at IEEE International Microwave Symposium 2015 (IMS 2015). The acceptance rate to IMS is only about 50%.
8-14-2014 Prof. Chen was invited to lecture a short course in the Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia in January 2015.
4-30-2014 Our paper “Giant Nonlinear Response From Plasmonic Metasurfaces Coupled to Intersubband Polaritons” has been accepted in Nature.
12-29-2013 CNN selected “Making an invisibility cloak“ as top science and space stories of 2013. Please see the related works in our early papers published in New Journal of Physics and Physical Review Letters.
12-03-2013 Our research with Prof. Andrea Alù and Dr. Christos Argyropoulos, “Broadening the Cloaking Bandwidth with Non-Foster Metasurfaces,” has been published in Physical Review Letters and selected as Editor’s Suggestion. This research has received numerous media outlets including the NBC, Times, BBC, Discovery News, Phys.Org, and UT Public News.
-quoted from Times, “We believe that the development of the concepts and ideas proposed in this paper may open new and exciting research lines in the field of cloaking and invisibility.”
10-25-2013 We are preparing an edited book entitled “Transformation Wave Physics: Electromagnetics, Elastodynamics and Thermodynamics” which will be published in Pan Stanford Publishing (www.panstanford.com). The book will be written by leading authors experts in the field of metamaterials and transformation multiphysics.
03-28-2013 Going to 2013 EuCAP? 2013 IEEE APS? You are more than welcome to come to our presentation:
- P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “Nanoantenna-Enhanced Optical Heterodyning and Photoemission Nanodevices,” 2013 IEEE APS, Lake Buena Vista, FL, July 7-12, 2013 (also a poster presentation in student paper award forum).
- P. Y. Chen, and A. Alù, “All-Graphene Terahertz and Analog Nanodevices and Nanocircuits,” EuCAP 2013, Goteborg, Sweden, April 8-12, 2013, (invited talk).
- A. Alù, “Modeling Optical Nanontennas for Nonlinearity Enhancement, Polarization Control, Communications and Energy Harvesting, EuCAP 2013, Goteborg, Sweden, April 8-12, 2013, (invited keynote talk).
03-26-2013 My recent research with Prof. Andrea Alù, Jason Soric, and Applied Research Lab “Demonstration of an Ultralow Profile Cloak for Scattering Suppression of a Finite-Length Rod in Free Space,” has been published in New Journal of Physics. This research has received numerous media outlets including the The Daily Texan, NBC News, CNN News, ABC News, CBS News, Discovery, US News, Phys.org, Fox News, Time News Feed, LA Times, Washington Times, Yahoo News, IET E & T Magazine, Weird, CCTV,Global Post,Higher Education, and Nature World News. See more details here.
Research Group of Prof. Pai-Yen Chen 