EE at Caltech has a century-long record of excellence, innovation and training many distinguished leaders in the field. As a discipline, EE has had a huge impact on the technologies that define modern-day life and society. EE at Caltech emphasizes both the fundamentals of electronics and systems, as well as acknowledging the multi-disciplinary nature of the field. Closely allied with Computation and Neural Systems, Applied Physics, Bioengineering, Computer Science, and Control and Dynamical System, it offers students the opportunity for study and research, both theoretical and experimental, in a wide variety of subjects, including wireless systems, quantum electronics, modern optics, lasers and guided waves, solid-state materials and devices, bio-optics and bio-electronics, power and energy systems, control theory, learning systems, computational finance, signal processing, data compression, communications, parallel and distributed computing, fault-tolerant computing, and computational vision.

Substantial experimental laboratory facilities, housed mainly in the Moore Laboratory of Engineering, are associated with each of these research fields.

Announcements
EE celebrated 100 years!
Check out videos and slide show from the event.

The Charles Wilts Prize is awarded every year to one EE graduate student for outstanding independent research in Electrical Engineering leading to a PhD. View a list of recipients.

The first Caltech EE student to send the correct answer receives a $25 gift certificate for The Red Door. Send your answers to ee-puzzler@caltech.edu

Puzzle #1
Consider an infinite grid of 1-Ω resistors. Let's call the dimension of the grid n, where a 1-dimensional grid would be a line of resistors connected end-to-end, a 2-dimensional grid would be a rectangular array of resistors, where each resistor is connected at each end to three other resistors, a 3-dimensional grid would be a cubic lattice where each resistor is connected at end to five resistors, and so on.

What is the resistance that you would measure across a resistor, as a function on n? For the n = 1, it is just 1 Ω, but for higher n, the grid gives a parallel component that reduces the resistance that you would measure.

Hint: superposition

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In the News

Yu-Chong Tai, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, and colleagues have developed a portable device to count white blood cells that needs less than a pinprick's worth of blood and takes just minutes to run. The heart of the new device is a 50-micrometer-long transparent channel made out of a silicone material with a cross section of only 32 micrometers by 28 micrometers—small enough to ensure that only one white blood cell at a time can flow through the detection region. The stained blood sample flows through this microfluidic channel to the detection region, where it is illuminated with a laser, causing it to fluoresce. [Caltech Release] 3.28.13

Hillary Mushkin, Visiting Professor of Art and Design in Mechanical and Civil Engineering, worked with a group of students taking her new media art history seminar (E/H/Art 89 - the first Caltech course cross-listed in engineering and humanities) to conceptualize, design and fabricate their own original new media artwork using technologies and fabrication methods of their own choice. Students created electroencephalogram (EEG) art, automatic drawing machines, conceptual art-inspired visualizations of mathematical concepts, interactive video projections, electronic instruments and other novel forms. [Photos of the exhibit] 3.21.13

The Caltech Division of Engineering and Applied Science and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have established a new scholarship program, named after outgoing National Academy of Engineering (NAE) president Charles M. Vest at their institutions, along with six other universities around the country. "The Vest Scholarship is a superb opportunity for high-powered international graduate students to work with faculty and researchers who are international leaders in their engineering disciplines," says Chair Ares Rosakis. "At Caltech, due to its small size and strong interdisciplinary philosophy, the students will have the opportunity to work closely with not only these international leaders in engineering research, but also with their collaborators in all areas of science and technology." [Caltech Release] [Application Information] 3.19.13

Caltech’s graduate program in engineering has been ranked fourth in the country by U.S. News & World Report, up from fifth last year and seventh the previous year. Engineering specialties at Caltech also ranked very well with first in aerospace / aeronautical / astronautical, third in mechanical, fifth in electrical / electronic / communications, seventh in materials, and ninth in environmental / environmental health. [Caltech Release] 3.14.13

Ali Hajimiri, Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering, and colleagues have built electronic chips that repair themselves. The team has demonstrated this self-healing capability in tiny power amplifiers. The amplifiers are so small, in fact, that 76 of the chips—including everything they need to self-heal—could fit on a single penny. In perhaps the most dramatic of their experiments, the team destroyed various parts of their chips by zapping them multiple times with a high-power laser, and then observed as the chips automatically developed a work-around in less than a second. [Caltech Release] 3.13.13

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