With the goal of harnessing the untapped potential of Iranian-Americans, and to build the capacity of the Iranian diaspora in effecting positive change in the U.S. and around the world, the Iranian Americans’ Contributions Project (IACP) has launched a series of interviews that explore the personal and professional backgrounds of prominent Iranian-Americans who have made seminal contributions to their fields of endeavour. We examine lives and journeys that have led to significant achievements in the worlds of science, technology, finance, medicine, law, the arts and numerous other endeavors. Our latest interviewee is Ali Hajimiri.
Ali Hajimiri is the Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering and the Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is an academic, inventor, and entrepreneur in various fields of technology including electrical and biomedical engineering. He is a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and was selected to the world's top 35 innovators under 35 (TR35) at age 32. He is an IEEE Fellow and has been the recipient of numerous other awards. He was recognized as one of the top 10 authors in the 60-year history of the International Solid-State and Circuits Conference. He holds 86 granted U.S. patents, and was one of 45 scientists invited to speak at the World Economic Forum in 2016. He and his collaborators have won numerous best paper awards. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and has worked for Bell Laboratories, Philips Semiconductors, and Sun Microsystems. He co-founded Axiom MicrodevicesInc., whose fully-integrated CMOS power amplifier has shipped more than 250 million units, and was acquired by Skyworks Inc. For more details, please see (here).
Tell our readers where you grew up and walk us through your background. How did your family and surroundings influence you in your formative years?
I consider myself fortunate for having grown up in a family where my parents instilled curiosity and independent thinking in me. I had plenty of free time in my early years before going to school. I grew up in Iran. I was six years old when the Iranian Revolution started. I have many recollections and memories of the time period, from watching the riots on the street to the aerial attacks and missile attacks on the cities during the war with Iraq.
When I was four years old, I was mesmerized when my dad read me a (translated) popular science book by Isaac Asimov called “What Makes the Sun Shine,” which describes the formations of planets and sun, the components of atoms and the reasons why the sun shines. I immediately fell in love with science as it was the ultimate place to satisfy one’s curiosity. I also always enjoyed making things. I was exposed to electronics when I was eight years old when I received a simple electronic kit as a birthday gift, which would turn a light on when it got dark. I was fascinated by its working and tried to understand the relationship and functionality or its components. When I was 11 years old I found another book that described a Helium-Neon gas laser, I tried (unsuccessfully) for a long period of time to build a laser; looking back, now I know, I neither had the expertise, nor the right equipment to do that. I have also been lucky to have had several very inspiring teachers who have greatly influenced my life and career. I try to incorporate what I learned from them in dealing with my students.
Your fields of interest cover broad areas within high-speed and high-frequency electronics, photonics, and integrated circuits. Can you share some highlights of your work in these areas?
In very simple terms, my field involves creating small things that change very fast and by doing so make a better future possible. Integrated circuits and systems are a discipline of making very complex systems on a small chip out of extremely large number of relatively simple and extremely small components. My team has pioneered the world’s first radar on a chip (the technology is starting to be used in self-driving cars), the world’s first fully integrated CMOS power amplifier (in hundreds of millions of smartphones), integrated photonic optical phased arrays (the world’s first lens-less projectors), the first self-healing circuits that can repair themselves, THz imagers capable of seeing through objects, the world’s first lensless camera, super-precise nano-photonic 3D camera, and handheld diagnostic devices for personal medicine. We have also been developing a magnetic drug delivery device that attacks tumors in the body by magnetically bringing the drug and white blood cells to where the rumor is.
Under your leadership, Caltech High-speed Integrated Circuits (CHIC) group concentrates on electronic and photonics integrated circuits and their applications in communications, biotechnology, and sensing. Your group has been responsible for some of the key developments in the field of integrated circuits, such as world’s first fully-integrated CMOS power amplifiers and world’s first silicon-based and CMOS integrated phased arrays in mm-waves. With many notable alumni in academia and industry and a proven track record of commercialization, CHIC laboratories have been on the vanguard of technology innovation in integrated circuit research. Could you tell our readers more about your group's achievements?
In addition to the above technical achievements, I believe our greatest achievement and our most significant “products” are the people we have trained. Most of our alumni are leaders in their field, either in academia or industry or both. I am also very proud of the fact that the technologies that we have developed and continue to develop have had a positive impact on improving the quality of human life.
Since you have a PhD in electrical engineering, can you address the relationship between academia and industry in your field? How can their relationship be optimized?
Engineering is discipline of creation. It starts with a concept or an idea and it takes a long path to become a product. Since the end result of engineering is a product, its academic discipline is highly intertwined with industry practices. Good engineering education should be mindful of industrial limits, and obstacles. Forward looking companies rely heavily on the research that comes from university to determine their future path.
You hold 86 US and some additional international patents and have been elected to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Can you tell us which ones have been your greatest achievement? What is the first thing new inventors should consider? What should they avoid?
I would consider our patents on CMOS PA, radar on a chip, and optical phased array as the ones with the highest impact, while there are numerous other ones that have also played significant roles in the development of technology in our society. As for new inventors, they should realize that contrary to the common notion of moments of epiphany, the many good inventions materialize through a rather arduous process. It would require multiple iterations to arrive at a superior solution. I would suggest that the new inventors consider many different solutions, try to narrow down the field of possible solutions, and use their analytical skills to realize the preferred way. To be able to generate many different solutions, one has to broaden their knowledge base, beyond their field of study. So a prolific inventor must be intellectually curious about learning many different things and must remain curious to constantly think about new things. The greatest reason for failure in my opinion is fear of failure, so do not give up.
You are a recipient of many awards. Your awards include Caltech’s Graduate Students Council Teaching and Mentoring Award as well as the Associated Students of Caltech Undergraduate Excellence in Teaching Award. You were the Gold medal winner of the National Physics Competition and the Bronze Medal winner of the 21st International Physics Olympiad, Groningen, Netherlands, just to name a few. What has been your “secret of success?”
There many ingredients to “success.” It is a long process involving curiosity, perseverance, ambition, and the ability to work with a team. I developed all of these qualities being surrounded by great people, be it collaborators, advisors, peers, or mentees. As the saying goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, take your friends."
What are the research avenues you are exploring for the next few years?
I remain interested in research on the intersection of integrated electronics and photonics for energy, human health, and sensing. We have several exciting projects in this domain. I am also going to be actively involved in our project on a space-based solar power project, where we are designing the first space-based power station that collects the solar power in orbit and beams it down to earth. This will make it possible to send clear power to anywhere on the planet, anytime, at any amount. I am hoping that this will have a significant impact on the future of energy for the world.
How do you see your field changing? What excites you most about the future of your field?
Any worthy effort involves constant change. Change is an important and essential part of human endeavor. My field(s) are no exception. The best thing is to place yourself in a position where you can be the instigator of positive change. Also, we should be clear that not all change is good (for example getting cancer is a change, but it is not one that anybody welcomes). I believe there are many opportunities (and challenges) for the technologies that we are developing to improve the human life. At the same, every new technology brings its own challenges. So perhaps the most exciting and at the same time the most frightening thing about these technologies is how we will use them. That will define us collectively as the human race.
What is right and wrong with today’s engineering educational offerings?
What is great today, which was less true when I was in school, is broad access to knowledge. This has enabled the younger generation to be able to get passed the first steps quickly and get involved. However, successful creation has many ingredients. while imagination and aspiration are important parts of those, it is also important to have in-depth and fundamental knowledge of the underlying mathematics and science to be able to execute your ideas effectively. I believe we, collectively as educators, need to provide a deeper knowledge base for our students and give them more opportunities for deeper thinking. One of the challenges today is that there is so much “chatter” around our younger generation that they do not get a chance to explore ideas deeply and without major time pressures and as a result we end up with innovations that become progressively more incremental.
Since you graduated from Iran’s leading technical university (Sharif University of Technology), have you kept in touch with that institution, and do you engage in academic collaboration with colleagues in Iran?
I have from time to time followed some of the research work that has been published by faculty and students of Sharif and also have met several recent graduates of the University at conferences.