Welcome to our übergroup !

The most exciting frontiers in nanoscience and nanotechnology span multiple disciplines. Accordingly, we’ve forged strong working collaborations with diverse laboratories around the world to explore these new research directions ...our "übergroup". The exceptional international partners we are privileged to be collaborating with at present are listed here. 

We are currently working to explore new physics at the nanoscale and to apply this knowledge to realize next-gen tools for the biomedical and life sciences. Our current focus is on:
(a) single-cell proteomics with single-molecule resolution enabled by arrays of microscale electrostatic traps (µESTs);
(b) single-molecule native mass spectrometry of large proteins and intact protein complexes via arrays of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS);
(c) spatial proteomics, specifically, imaging and identification of proteins in cells and tissue with sub-cellular and single-molecule resolution;
(d) single-quantum measurements on macromolecules at ultralow temperatures to elucidate the internal quantum dynamics of their long-range collective vibrational modes that drive "effector-free" allostery; and on the
(e) fundamental physics and novel applications of nanoscale systems, especially for developing and exploring novel computational "bits" and paradigms, the dynamics of NEMS oscillator networks, and nanoscale arrays for quantum sensing.

All our efforts are founded on approaches and materials that are readily producible en masse in state-of-the-art semiconductor device foundries. This enables fundamental explorations of physics at the nanoscale and at the frontiers of the life sciences (at sufficiently large scale to enable high throughput), and importantly, the realization of commercializable nanotechnology. Over the years, three start-ups have emerged from our group.

N.B. - At present (2024), our efforts on integrated neurophotonics
– to realize massively-parallel mapping of brain activity through very-large-scale integration of nanoelectronic and nanophotonic devices –
are paused at Caltech. Our close collaborators in the Shepard Group at Columbia University continue to pursue this vision aggressively and effectively. They have recently achieved several exciting milestones in this new field.

In the News

Stay tuned... many recent updates coming soon.     01-04-24

Our collaborative publications, Beam-Steering Nanophotonic Phased-Array Neural Probes -and- Nanophotonic Neural Probes for in vivo Light Sheet Imaging by Wesley D. Sacher, et al. have been published in the OSA Technical Digest; Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO 2019) by the Optical Society of America. Congratulations to our entire collaborative team spanning the Roukes Group (Caltech) and the Poon, Valiante, and Lozano Groups (University of Toronto).
10-01-19

Our publication, Resonantly Induced Friction and Frequency Combs in Driven Nanomechanical Systems by Mark I. Dykman, Gianluca Rastelli, Michael Roukes, and Eva M. Weig has been published in Physical Review Letters. Congratulations to our entire collaborative team. (Professor Dykman was in residence with the Roukes Group in Q1-Q2/2019 as a Gordon Moore Distinguished Fellow.)
06-27-19

Our publication, A high-speed, high-performance, microfabricated comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograph by Joshua Whiting et al. has been published in the journal Lab on a Chip. Congratulations to Joshua, Ed, Joe, and our entire (previous) DARPA MGA team.
03-18-19

Congratulations to Matt and our entire MURI team (involving groups at Caltech, UC Davis, U Washington, & Rice U.)! Our paper entitled Exotic states in a simple network of nanoelectromechanical oscillators, by Matthew Matheny et al., has just been published in Science. This work has been covered widely in the popular press; Caltech's press release can be found here.
03-08-19

Our collaborative publication, A 512-Pixel 3kHz-Frame-Rate Dual-Shank Lensless Filterless Single-Photon-Avalanche-Diode CMOS Neural Imaging Probe by Changhyuk Lee, et al. has been published in the 2019 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference Proceedings. Congratulations to our entire collaborative team spanning the Roukes Group (Caltech) and the Shepard Group (Columbia University).
03-07-19

Congratulations to Hongxia, Eric and the rest of the two teams. Two new papers have recently been published on our collaborative work:
1. Optogenetic manipulation of medullary neurons in the locust optic lobe , Hongxia Wang, Richard B. Dewell, Markus U. Ehrengruber, Eran Segev, Jacob Reimer, Michael L. Roukes, and Fabrizio Gabbiani, Journal of Neurophysiology 120(4), 2049-2058 (2018).
2. Single-particle mass spectrometry with arrays of frequency-addressed nanomechanical resonators , Eric Sage, Marc Sansa, Shawn Fostner, Martial Defoort, Marc Gély, Akshay K. Naik, Robert Morel, Laurent Duraffourg, Michael L. Roukes, Thomas Alava, Guillaume Jourdan, Eric Colinet, Christophe Masselon, Ariel Brenac & Sébastien Hentz, Nature Communications 9, 3283 (2018).

Congratulations to Ludovic, Jean-Jacques, Jean-Sébastien, and Laurent. Our paper entitled 12μm -Pitch Electromechanical Resonator for Thermal Sensing, has just been published in Physical Review Applied.
02-15-18

Our latest installment on NEMS single-molecule analysis, a paper entitled Mass Spectrometry Using Nanomechanical Systems: Beyond the Point-Mass Approximation, by John E. Sader, M. Selim Hanay, Adam P. Neumann, and Michael L. Roukes, has just been published in Nano Letters.
01-25-18

Our Neurotech Alliance website is now live! Please visit it at openneurotech.org.
10-17-17

Professor Roukes' four lectures on Nanoelectromechanical Systems from the Second Arctic School on Open Quantum Systems, held 10-15 Sept 2017 at Kevo Research Station, Finland, are online and available to workshop participants. The link is here.

Our implementation of coupled NEMS oscillators for network and synchronization studies has appeared in Nano Letters: Complex Dynamical Networks Constructed with Fully Controllable Nonlinear Nanomechanical Oscillators, by Warren Fon, Matthew H. Matheny, Jarvis Li, Lev Krayzman, Michael C. Cross, Raissa M. D’Souza, James P. Crutchfield, and Michael L. Roukes.
09-08-17

Together with Ed Boyden (MIT), Ken Shepard (Columbia) and Miyoung Chun (Kavli Foundation), Prof. Roukes has organized a Kavli Futures Symposium: Toward Open-Source, Next-Gen Neurotechnology Dissemination to be held in Santa Monica, CA on 20-21 October 2017. For more information, please check out the Symposium website
08-01-17

Our group's PATENTS webpage is now live. Check it out!
07-26-17

PI Viewpoint by Prof. Michael L. Roukes: "I stand with the Association of American Universities to urge a permanent end to the recent executive order -- and any future action by the current Administration -- that would bar individuals from certain countries from entering or returning to the United States of America. Previous Administrations' visa policies have welcomed talented individuals from all parts of the world to study, teach, and carry out research in the USA. It is essential to our nation's well-being that this continues without interruption."
02-10-17

Great recent coverage on French TV for our spin-off, APIX Analytics !
01-07-17

Professor Roukes is conference chair for NMC/2017, the 14th International Workshop on Nanomechanical Sensors, a Kavli Futures Symposium that will be held in Kona-Kailua, on the big island of Hawai'i from 4-7 April 2017. A great program is lined up! It will focus broadly on micro- and nanomechanical sensing, as always, but NMC/2017 will especially feature sensing at the quantum limit and the work of emerging researchers. Please consider participating!
12-23-16

Congratulations to Eran and the entire team! Our new paper: Patterned photostimulation via visible-wavelength photonic probes for deep brain optogenetics has been published online as an open access article in Neurophotonics. It will be part of the special Jan 2017 issue on "Brain Mapping and Therapeautics". The journal has prepared a special press release about this work.
12-07-16

Our new paper, Nonlinear Damping and Dephasing in Nanomechanical Systems, by Juan Atalaya, Thomas Kenny, Michael Roukes, and Mark Dykman has been published in Physical Review B.
11-28-16

Our book, Micro and Nanomechanical Resonators: Fundamentals and Applications, by Silvan Schmid, Luis Guillermo Villanueva, and Michael Lee Roukes has been released by Springer.
11-12-16

Congratulations to the team!! We have received two new NIH BRAIN Initiative grants together with our esteemed collaborators, Professors Ken Shepard (EE and BME, Columbia U.), Randy Bruno (Neuroscience, Columbia U.), and Lihong Wang (=>Caltech, as of 01-01-17). One grant will support our efforts toward production and worldwide dissemination of our novel nanoprobe neurotechnology; the other will support our development of implantable, probe-based technology for photoacoustic imaging.
10-22-16

Our new paper: Nanofabricated Neural Probes for Dense 3D Recordings of Brain Activity has been picked as an ACS Editor's Choice, and is online as an open access article in Nano Letters.
10-21-16

Scientific American and Nature highlight Professor Roukes' talk at a meeting organized by the US National Science Foundation - Coordinating Global Brain Projects, hosted at Rockefeller University.
09-22-16

Professor Roukes' talk for the Caltech Breakthrough Campaign, entitled Moonshot for Neurotechnology: The Brain Observatory is now online for viewing.
07-05-16

Congratulations to our two newly minted Ph.D.'s -- Caryn Bullard (Physics) and Peter Hung (Applied Physics). Well done!
6-01-16

The group of 6 scientists that initially proposed a national project for brain activity mapping (which led to the Obama BRAIN Initiative) has reassembled to write a new "white paper" for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), entitled "A National Network of Neurotechnology Centers for the BRAIN Initiative". It has now been published as a "NeuroView (position paper) in the journal Neuron. (BTW -You can find Ref. 7 here.) This has been covered by Science and in a press release by the Kavli Foundation. 10-15-15

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