Shuhao Fan

Harvard University

Position: Postdoctoral Fellow
Rising Stars year of participation: 2025
Bio

Shuhao Fan is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University, working with Prof. Donhee Ham. She received her Ph.D. degree in IC Design Engineering from the University of Macau, China, in 2024, under the supervision of Prof. Lei Ka-Meng and Prof. Mak Pui-In. She received her M.S. degree in IC Design Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2017, and her B.Eng. degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China, in 2016. She was the recipient of the 2025 IEEE SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award and the 2024 IEEE CASS Student Travel Grant. Her research interests include analog and RF integrated circuits for portable NMR/MRI microsystems, NV-diamond quantum sensors, and biosensing interfaces for neuronal and cellular electrophysiology.

Areas of Research
  • Circuit Design
Integrated Circuits Enabling Miniaturized NMR/MRI and NV Quantum Sensing

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a powerful technique for probing molecular structure, dynamics, and interactions in chemical, material, and biological systems. Its non-destructive, quantitative, and molecularly specific information has transformed fields from chemistry to medicine. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), an application of NMR, extends these principles to non-invasive spatial imaging. However, conventional NMR/MRI instruments are bulky, heavy, and expensive, limiting accessibility for small-sample studies, point-of-care diagnostics, and in-field applications. Miniaturizing NMR/MRI into portable, low-cost microsystems would enable applications from molecular analysis in the field to bedside diagnostics.
My research addresses this challenge through two generations of CMOS-based application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) integrating key NMR building blocks. This work culminated in a pioneering 3D-MRI-on-a-chip system and a multi-nuclei NMR platform with sub-200 μm spatial resolution and fast imaging capability. These microsystems were validated through ¹H/¹⁹F NMR tracking and laminar-flow visualization, demonstrating the feasibility of compact, low-cost NMR systems.
In parallel, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center–based NMR, which relies on electron spin resonance (ESR) at microwave frequencies, offers ultrahigh sensitivity and nanoscale resolution, enabling molecular detection beyond conventional NMR. A central bottleneck is generating strong and well-controlled GHz B1 fields in coils, requiring large AC currents delivered efficiently and reliably. My research develops GaN HEMT-based driver architectures, co-designed with planar on-chip coils and matching networks, to achieve high B1 fields at microwave frequencies while employing reliability-aware techniques for stable operation. These advances enable compact NV-NMR/ESR platforms capable of high Rabi frequencies, with strong potential for molecular-scale sensing and quantum-enhanced detection.
Together, these innovations in integrated circuits lay the foundation for miniaturized, energy-efficient MR platforms. Moving forward, the research will advance an application-driven co-design methodology linking device and spin physics with circuit architectures and electromagnetic/biointerface design to accelerate translation into portable sensing technologies for science and healthcare.