Ming C. Wu

Research Areas

Micro/Nano Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)
Physical Electronics (PHY)
Si photonics, optoelectronics, nanophotonics, optical MEMS, Optofluidics

Research Centers

Teaching Schedule

Fall 2025

EECS 16B. Introduction to Circuits & Devices, TuTh 14:00-15:29, Haas Faculty Wing F295

Biography

Ming C. Wu is Nortel Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California, Berkeley, and Co-Director of Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC) and Berkeley Emerging Technologies Research Center (BETR). He received B.S. from National Taiwan University in 1983 and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1988. Prior to joining the faculty at Berkeley, Dr. Wu has conducted research at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey (1988-1992) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (1992-2004). Dr. Wu has published over 600 papers in journals and conferences and holds 35 US patents in Optical MEMS, optofluidics, silicon photonics and optoelectronics. In 1997, Prof. Wu co-founded OMM, Inc. to commercialize MEMS optical switches. OMM became the first company to supply Telcordia-qualified 8x8 and 16x16 switches. Recently, Prof. Wu has pushed the size of optical switches to 240x240 by combining MEMS with silicon photonics. In 2011, Prof. Wu co-founded Berkeley Lights, Inc. (NASDAQ:BLI) to commercialize optoelectronic tweezers (OET) invented by his group. The OET instrument is capable of sorting, cloning, culturing, analyzing antibody secretions of tens of thousands of single cells on a single optofluidic chip. The OET instruments have been used by major pharmaceutical companies for antibody discovery, cell line development, and synthetic biology.

Prof. Wu's accomplishments have been recognized by the Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award (OSA 2007), the William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award (IEEE Photonics Society 2016), the C.E.K. Mees Medal (OSA 2017), the Robert Bosch Micro and Nano Electro Mechanical Systems Award (IEEE Electronic Device Society, 2020), and the Bakar Prize (UC Berkeley 2021). Prof. Wu is Fellow of IEEE and Optical Society (OSA), a Packard Foundation Fellow (1992 – 1997), and a Bakar Fellow (2018-2019).

Education

1988, PhD, EECS, University of California, Berkeley

Selected Publications

X. Zhang, K. Kwon, J. Henriksson, J. Luo, and M. C. Wu, "A large-scale microelectromechanical-systems-based silicon photonics," Nature, vol. 603, no. 7900, pp. 253--258, March 2022.
P. Jacobson, M. Shirao, K. Yu, G. Su, and M. C. Wu, "Hybrid Convolutional Optoelectronic Reservoir Computing for Image Recognition," Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 692--699, Feb. 2022.
T. J. Seok, J. Luo, Z. Huang, K. Kwon, J. Henriksson, J. Jacobs, L. Ochikubo, R. S. Muller, and M. C. Wu, "Silicon photonic wavelength cross-connect with integrated MEMS switching," APL Photonics, vol. 4, no. 10, pp. 100803, Oct. 2019.
Y. Wang, G. Zhou, X. Zhang, K. Kwon, P. Blanche, N. Triesault, K. Yu, and M. C. Wu, "2D broadband beamsteering with large-scale MEMS optical phased array," Optica, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 557--562, May 2019.
X. Zhang, J. Pouls, and M. C. Wu, "Laser frequency sweep linearization by iterative learning pre-distortion for FMCW LiDAR," Optics Express, vol. 27, no. 7, pp. 9965--9974, April 2019.
T. J. Seok, K. Kwon, J. Henriksson, J. Luo, and M. C. Wu, "Wafer-scale silicon photonic switches beyond die size limit," Optica, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 490--494, April 2019.
J. Tremblay, M. Malinowski, K. A. Richardson, S. Fathpour, and M. C. Wu, "Picojoule-level octave-spanning supercontinuum generation in chalcogenide waveguides," Optics Express, vol. 26, no. 16, pp. 21358, Aug. 2018.
T. J. Seok, N. Quack, S. Han, R. Muller, and M. C. Wu, "Large-scale broadband digital silicon photonic switches with vertical adiabatic couplers," Optica, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 64, Jan. 2016.
M. S. Eggleston and M. C. Wu, "Efficient Coupling of an Antenna-Enhanced nanoLED into an Integrated InP Waveguide," Nano Letters, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 3329--3333, May 2015.
M. S. Eggleston, K. Messer, L. Zhang, E. Yablonovitch, and M. C. Wu, "Optical antenna enhanced spontaneous emission," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 112, no. 6, pp. 1704--1709, Feb. 2015.
B. Yoo, M. Megens, T. Sun, W. Yang, C. Chang-Hasnain, D. A. Horsley, and M. C. Wu, "A 32 × 32 optical phased array using polysilicon sub-wavelength high-contrast-grating mirrors," Optics Express, vol. 22, no. 16, pp. 19029, Aug. 2014.
K. Yu, A. Lakhani, and M. C. Wu, "Subwavelength metal-optic semiconductor nanopatch lasers," Optics Express, vol. 18, no. 9, pp. 8790--8799, April 2010.
E. K. Lau, X. Zhao, H. Sung, D. Parekh, C. Chang-Hasnain, and M. C. Wu, "Strong optical injection-locked semiconductor lasers demonstrating > 100-GHz resonance frequencies and 80-GHz intrinsic bandwidths," Optics Express, vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 6609-6618, April 2008.
A. Jamshidi, P. J. Pauzauskie, P. J. Schuck, A. T. Ohta, P. Chiou, J. Chou, P. Yang, and M. C. Wu, "Dynamic manipulation and separation of individual semiconducting and metallic nanowires," Nature Photonics, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 86-89, Feb. 2008.
P. Y. Chiou, Z. H. Chang, and M. C. Wu, "Droplet manipulation with light on optoelectrowetting device," Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 133-138, Feb. 2008.
E. K. Lau, H. K. Sung, and M. C. Wu, "Frequency Response Enhancement of Optical Injection-Locked Lasers," IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 90-99, Jan. 2008.
J. Yao, D. Leuenberger, M. C. Lee, and M. C. Wu, "Silicon microtoroidal resonators with integrated MEMS tunable coupler," IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 202-8, 2007.
M. C. Wu, O. Solgaard, and J. E. Ford, "Optical MEMS for lightwave communication (Invited Paper)," J. Lightwave Technology, vol. 24, no. 12, pp. 4433-4454, Dec. 2006.
M. M. Lee and M. C. Wu, "Tunable coupling regimes of silicon microdisk resonators using MEMS actuators," Optics Express, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 4703-4712, May 2006.
P. Y. Chiou, A. T. Ohta, and M. C. Wu, "Massively parallel manipulation of single cells and microparticles using optical images," Nature, vol. 436, no. 7049, pp. 370-372, July 2005.