Deblina Sarkar facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Deblina Sarkar
Sarkar in 2018
Born	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Alma mater	Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad University of California, Santa Barbara
Known for	Ultra thin quantum mechanical transistor (ATLAS-TFET), nanoscale biosensors, expansion microscopy
Awards	2018 MIT Technology Review's Top 10 Innovator Under 35 from India, 2016 CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering, 2016 UCSB Winifred and Louis Lancaster Dissertation Award for Math, Physical Science and Engineering, 2008 U.S. Presidential Fellowship
Scientific career
Fields	Nanoelectronics Neuroscience
Institutions	MIT Media Lab
Thesis	2D Steep Transistor Technology: Overcoming Fundamental Barriers in Low-Power Electronics and Ultra-Sensitive Biosensors (2015)
Doctoral advisor	Kaustav Banerjee

Deblina Sarkar is a brilliant electrical engineer and inventor from India. She was born in Kolkata, West Bengal. Today, she is a professor at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She also holds a special position called the AT&T Career Development Chair Professor at the MIT Media Lab.

Dr. Sarkar is known around the world for creating a super-thin, tiny transistor. This special device uses quantum mechanics, which is a branch of physics that studies very small particles. Her invention can be made incredibly small, down to the "nano" size. These tiny transistors are useful in biosensors, which are devices that can detect biological things like molecules. At MIT, Dr. Sarkar leads a team of scientists in her Nano Cybernetic Biotrek Lab. They work on connecting nanotechnology (the study of tiny things) with synthetic biology (designing new biological parts). Their goal is to build new nano-devices and technologies that link living things with machines. This helps them study and improve how our bodies work.

Early Life and Education

Dr. Sarkar grew up in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She studied electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. During her college years, she focused on designing tiny devices and a field called spintronics. Her work gained international attention. In 2007, she published a paper about special transistors called double-gate MOSFETs.

Before finishing her degree, she spent a summer as an intern in Germany. There, she did research in spintronics at the University of Würzburg. She earned her engineering degree in 2008. After that, she moved to the United States. She went to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to get her master's and Ph.D. degrees.

At UCSB, Dr. Sarkar learned about nanoelectronics from her mentor, Kaustav Banerjee. She developed new ways to make tiny devices use less energy. She also created new biosensors using a material called molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). After finishing her Ph.D. in 2015, Dr. Sarkar became a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. She worked in the Synthetic Neurobiology group with Edward Boyden. There, she helped create new ways to map the brain's structure and how it works.

In 2020, Dr. Sarkar became an Assistant Professor at MIT. She also became the AT&T Career Development Chair Professor at MIT Media Labs. She started her own research group, which she named the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek Lab. She explained that "nano" means they build tiny devices. "Cybernetic" means using technology to control systems, whether they are computer, biological, or a mix. "Bio" stands for biology, and "trek" means the exciting scientific journey they are on.

Amazing Inventions and Discoveries

Tiny Transistors for Less Power

Dr. Sarkar invented a special quantum-mechanical transistor. It's called the atomically thin and layered semiconducting-channel tunnel-FET (ATLAS-TFET). This device helps solve a big problem with regular transistors: they use a lot of power and get hot. Her invention uses a special effect called quantum mechanical tunneling. This allows it to work with very little power.

This transistor is designed in a unique way. It has a special structure made of different materials, including super-thin MoS₂. This design helps electricity flow very efficiently. This invention can help make our computers and phones smaller and use much less energy. Dr. Sarkar's work on this tiny transistor was published in the famous science journal Nature. Nature even highlighted her work, calling it a "Flat transistor defies the limit."

Super-Sensitive Biosensors

Dr. Sarkar also created a new type of Field-effect transistor-based biosensor using MoS₂. This biosensor is incredibly sensitive. It's 74 times more sensitive than biosensors made with graphene. It's also easy to make and use because MoS₂ has a flat, two-dimensional structure.

This new biosensor works well with biological tissues. It can even detect single molecules, which is amazing! Dr. Sarkar showed that her new technology can make biosensors much better. They can be about 10,000 times more sensitive and detect things 10 times faster. This could lead to new wearable or implantable medical devices. It could also help create quick tests for doctors to use in their offices.

Understanding Graphene at High Speeds

Dr. Sarkar and her team developed a detailed way to understand how graphene works at very high frequencies. Graphene is a super-thin material made of carbon. This research helps us understand how to use graphene in tiny wires and coils inside computer chips. They discovered something new called the "anomalous skin effect" in graphene.

Their model showed that graphene wires can have lower resistance than copper or carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at high frequencies. This means they can carry signals faster and more efficiently. Graphene-based coils can also work much better than those made from copper or CNTs. This research is very important for building high-speed electronic devices. It could lead to flexible computers and even better prosthetic devices in the future.

Mapping the Brain in Detail

Dr. Sarkar and her team created a new tool called iterated direct expansion microscopy (idExM). This tool helps scientists see tiny structures inside tissues by making the tissues bigger. Imagine trying to see tiny details in a tightly packed box. It's hard! Similarly, structures in our brain, like the connections between brain cells (called synapses), are packed very tightly. This makes it hard for scientists to study them.

To solve this, Dr. Sarkar's team developed idExM. They put tissue into a special gel and then use forces to make the tissue expand. It can expand almost 100 times its original size! This technology helped them see tiny connections in brain tissue. It also helped them understand the complex way that amyloid-β plaques are organized. These plaques are linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Awards and Recognitions

Dr. Deblina Sarkar has received many awards and honors for her amazing work:

• Distinguished Scientist Award (2023)
• Early Career Distinguished Presenter at Materials Research Society (2023)
• Science News 10 Scientists to Watch (2023)
• Featured in Nature Neuroscience (2023)
• MIND Prize (Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery) (2023)
• Abundance 360 Scholar (2022-2023)
• At&t Career Development Chair Professorship (2019-2023)
• Featured in Association for Women in Science (AWIS) News Brief (2022)
• NIH Directors New Innovator Award (2022)
• Perfect and Rarely Achieved Impact Score of 10 from NIH (2022)
• "Explorer of the Nano Age" feature by MIT.nano (2022)
• Innovative Early Career Engineer by National Academy of Engineering (2022)
• IEEE Nanotechnology Early Career Award (2022)
• Leading next generation scientist by United for Medical Research (2021)
• iCANX Young Scientist Award (2021)
• IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS) feature (2021)
• Featured by Imagination in Action (2021)
• Featured in Neuron (2020)
• Young Scientist Excellence Award at Microsystems and Nanoengineering (Nature) (2020)
• Distinguished Alumnus Award as a "Young Achiever" from IIT (2020)
• Technology Review's Innovators Under Age 35 (2018)
• NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (2018)
• MIT Translational Fellow (2017)
• One of the top 3 dissertations throughout USA and Canada in Mathematics, Physical sciences and Engineering (2016)
• Lancaster Award for the best PhD Dissertation at UCSB (2016)
• One of 4 young scientists worldwide to present a master class on physics at Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (2016)
• MRS Graduate Student Award (2015)
• Rising Star in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2015)
• Falling Walls Lab Young Innovator Award at UCSD (2015)
• "Bright Mind" honor at KAUST-NSF Conference (2015)
• Dissertation Fellowship, UCSB (2014)
• IEEE EDS PhD Fellowship Award (2011)
• US Presidential Fellowship for graduate research (2008)
• Outstanding Doctoral Candidate Fellowship (2008)

Selected Publications

Dr. Sarkar has published many important research papers. Here are a few examples:

• Iterative Direct Expansion Microscopy. D. Sarkar, A. Wassie, J. Kang, T. Tarr, A. Tang, T. A. Blanpied, E. S. Boyden. Society for Neuroscience, 2019.
• 2D materials for FET based biosensors. D. Sarkar. Fundamentals and Sensing applications of 2D materials, Ed: C.S. Rout, D.J. Late and Hywel Morgan, Woodhead Publishing Series, Elsevier, 2019.
• Glyoxal as an alternative to PFA in immunostaining and nanoscopy. K. N. Richter, N. H. Revelo, K. J. Seitz, M. S. Helm, D. Sarkar et al.. The EMBO Journal, 2017.
• A Subthermionic Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor with an Atomically Thin Channel. Deblina Sarkar, Xuejun Xie, Wei Liu, Wei Cao, Jiahao Kang, Yongji Gong, Stephan Kraemer, Pulickel M. Ajayan and Kaustav Banerjee. Nature (journal), Vol. 526, pp. 91–95, 2015.
• MoS2 Field-Effect Transistor for Next-Generation Label-Free Biosensors. Deblina Sarkar, Wei Liu, Xuejun Xie, Aaron Anselmo, Samir Mitragotri and Kaustav Banerjee. ACS Nano, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 3992–4003, 2014.
• Proposal for Tunnel-Field-Effect-Transistor as Ultra-Sensitive and Label-Free Biosensors. Deblina Sarkar and Kaustav Banerjee. Applied Physics Letters, 100, No. 14, 143108, 2012.
• High-Frequency Behavior of Graphene-Based Interconnects—Part I: Impedance Modeling. Deblina Sarkar, Chuan Xu, Hong Li, and Kaustav Banerjee. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 843–852, March 2011.

See also

In Spanish: Deblina Sarkar para niños