□ On Wednesday October 18, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST; President Young Kuk) announced that Sang-woo Nam and Dong-ju Choi, students in the combined master’s/PhD program and members of Professors Jae-sok Yu and Sang-yoon Han’s joint research team in the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, have been chosen as Student Paper Competition finalists at the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS) 2023, one of the world's most prestigious medical ultrasound conferences.
□ The IEEE IUS is among the world's most authoritative academic conferences on medical ultrasound and has been held for over 50 years. This year's event was hosted in Montreal, Canada, on October 4. Sang-woo Nam and Dong-ju Choi, students in the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering, DGIST, were recognized for contributing one of the 15 best papers as selected by the Technical Committee from among the 1,203 papers submitted to the conference.
□ Their research paper focuses on an innovative photonic semiconductor-based ultrasonic sensor that combines silicon-photonics technology, a semiconductor that uses light instead of electricity and has been dubbed “the semiconductor technology of the future,” and micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) technology.
□ The research team was highly evaluated for successfully developing an ultrasonic sensor based on a quantum semiconductor by combining silicon-photonics technology and MEMS technology to overcome the issue of lower signal sensitivity due to noise caused by electrical devices, especially when using piezoelectric devices.
□ The new technology allows for easily adjustable performance through the application of external voltage, without having to replace the sensor, thus improving sensitivity or the dynamic range. It also opens a new direction for developing an extremely sensitive quantum ultrasonic sensor, based on the properties of silicon photonics technology, using photons.
□ Sang-woo Nam and Dong-ju Choi said, "We achieved it through interdisciplinary research. This technology can be used as a high-performance sensor in ultrasonic non-destructive testing or medical ultrasound imaging, where high sensitivity is needed to detect very low intensity ultrasonic waves."
□ The research was funded by the Samsung Future Technology Development Project.
