Each year, Cleveland State University selects its faculty members to receive the Distinguished Faculty Research Awards. The award is intended to honor those whose research or creative work has been recognized in the scholarly or creative community as exceptional. One of the two 2013 awards went to Professor Siu-Tung Yau of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prof. Yau has made significant achievements in research since he started working at CSU in 2006.

Prof. Yau’s two research areas, namely ultrasensitive bio-detection and renewable-energy devices, are mainstream directions of today’s technology. Prof. Yau has invented an extremely sensitive biosensor for the detection of bacteria pathogens, cancer biomarkers and viruses. The sensor is inexpensive and can be used as a hand-held device. The sensor can be used in a range of applications, including food safety, healthcare, environmental protection and anti-terrorism.

Prof. Yau has also been researching in the area of the generation and storage of renewable energy. He has constructed a compact fuel cell whose anode was made of silicon nanoparticle. The fuel cell shows the feasibility of generating electrical power in human body using the glucose in the body fluid as fuel. Another renewable energy device Prof. Yau has studied was the supercapacitor. He is highly cited for his demonstration of flexible supercapacitors that has a specific capacitance of 409.27F per gram of nanomaterial used as the capacitor medium. The flexible sheets of supercapacitors has been made using a simple “brushing-on” technique. The photos show the capacitor sheet and the lighting up of a portable lamp consisting of 12 LEDs by a stack of capacitor sheets.

The quality of Prof. Yau’s research is mainly reflected in his published original research papers. He has published 17 original research papers in refereed journals in these areas since 2006. His other research-related achievements include presenting talks at major international conferences, securing external grants, organizing conferences, getting patents, serving on editorial and advisory boards, serving as program evaluators for international and domestic organizations, reviewing books/manuscripts.