Overview

SIST maintained a national leading position in terms of its overall academic performance. All disciplines have gradually formed their own distinctive research directions and specialization, and many outstanding achievements are recognized at home and abroad. The school's multi-disciplinary strength continues to exalt its competence and excellence in education and research.

Actively engaged in scientific research on cutting-edge technologies, the school has successfully applied for or completed a great number of national, ministerial, provincial and municipal level research projects, including a number of “973” Program, “863” Program, the National Science and Technology Major Projects, Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.. Its outstanding research achievements have been highly recognized both nationally and internationally. Meanwhile, the school continuously contributes to society and achieves social impact through technology innovation and transfer.

Recent Highlights

Mechanism of Current Hysteresis in OTFTs

Current hysteresis restricts the applications of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), and a mechanistic understanding is lacking despite extensive studies to eliminate it. Recently, the research group led by Associate Professor Zhi-jun Qiu and Professor Ran Liu demonstrates experimentally that it is caused by an interaction between bipolaron and the water/oxygen redox couple, which paves the way for the fabrication of stable OTFTs. Related results have been published in Nature Communications 5, 3185 (2014).

High-speed LED Based Visible Light Communication

Visible light communication is a promising technique for next generation access network, but the relatively low modulation bandwidth of LED restricts its transmission capacity. Professor Nan Chi has successfully achieved a record offline data rate of 4.22Gb/s utilizing a single commercially available RGB-LED based on high-order spectral efficient modulation format, multi-dimensional multiplexing scheme and advanced equalization algorithms. Meanwhile, she has developed three generations of high-speed real-time VLC prototypes, which promotes its development of industrialization. Related results have been published on top journals of optics and reported by dozens of domestic and foreign media including BBC, CCTV and People’s Daily.

Complex Network Theory and Network Science

Complex network theories and the newly emergence of Network Science is the interdisciplinary cutting-edge research field covering (but not limited to) categories of information/communication networks and human population dynamics over such cyber-physical-social networks. The Adaptive Networks and Control (CAN) Lab. led by Prof. Xiang Li targets at discovering the fundamental rules of both structural and dynamics evolution of complex networks, which in return improve/predict/optimize the functions and collective behaviors of  such involved networks and human societies. The CAN group mainly focuses on the theories of complex networks with the application to personal mobile health-care devices and finance analyses. The group leader Prof. Xiang Li serves as Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems-I: Regular Papers, and the research outcomes have been published in IEEE Transactions, Physical Review, Scientific Reports (Nature), with the support from the National Natural/Social Science Foundations and etc. 

Optofluidic ELISA Lasers

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a powerful method for biomolecular analysis. The traditional ELISA employing light intensity as the sensing signal often encounters large background arising from non-specific bindings, material autofluorescence and leakage of excitation light, which deteriorates its detection limit and dynamic range. Professor Xudong Fan’s Group, Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Associate Professor Xiang Wu, Fudan University, develop the optofluidic laser-based ELISA, where ELISA occurs inside a laser cavity. The unique capability of the optofluidic laser in sensitively detecting analytes with a significantly improved detection limit and dynamic range over the traditional ELISA. Related results have been published in Nature Communications 5:3779 (2014).

Our Technology Enabled China's First Olympic Gold Medal in Sailing

Associate Professor Zhu Qian's research team designed the real-time wind and current tracking system that helped China's national sailing team win the country's first Olympic gold medal in the sport, in London, 2012. The system was instrumental in helping the team prepare for the event. It works by collecting the information from sensors Installed on the boat, which can be transmitted wirelessly to smart phones or tablet computers. During training, the information allowed the sailing team's coach to give more timely and accurate instructions to the sailors. The speed and direction of the wind and water currents determine the winner in competitive sailing. Sailors have to know that information precisely so they can respond quickly to any changes. The dead zones, where no wind blows, are deadly to sailors when competing on the sea. It is very hard for sailors and coaches to find them on their own, but they can be easily detected by the system.