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[Professor Yoo Seunghyup’s joint research team world’s first implementation of in-body OLED light therapy]

 

[Heading: (From the left) Professor Yoo Seunghyup from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Professor Park Do-hyun from Seoul Asan Hospital, Dr. Sim Jee hoon from our university, Ph.D. student Kwon Jin-hee from Ulsan University, and Ph.D. student Chae Hyeonwook from our university.]

 

Light therapy has been steadily gaining attention recently for its ability to produce various positive effects without surgical or pharmaceutical intervention.

However, due to limitations such as light absorption and scattering within the skin, it is typically confined to external applications like the skin surface.

This poses a challenge when trying to apply it to internal organs, which have significant medical importance.

 

On September 13th, a joint research team consisting of Professor Yoo Seunghyup from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at our university, Professor Park Do-hyun from the Department of Gastroenterology at Seoul Asan Hospital, and the Real-Device Research Division of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute announced that they have, for the first time in the world, developed an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) based catheter*.

This opens the way to apply light therapy to internal organs.

Catheter: A thin tube made of rubber or metal material, primarily used to remove contents from a patient’s digestive tract, bronchus, or blood vessels, or to inject drugs or cleaning agents into the body.

 

The joint research team developed an OLED platform in the form of a catheter, creating an OLED light therapy device that can be directly inserted into tubular organs like the small intestine. They aimed to verify its potential to improve Type 2 diabetes, one of the major adult diseases of today.

 

The joint research team developed an ultra-thin, flexible OLED that is mechanically stable and functions well in a moist environment.

They created an OLED catheter that wraps around a cylindrical structure, emitting uniform light in all directions. Moreover, the unique low-heat emission characteristic of OLED as a surface light source prevented tissue damage from heat upon insertion into the body. By using biocompatible materials, they minimized potential side effects on the body.

 

The joint research team conducted animal experiments on a Type 2 diabetes rat model (Goto-Kakizaki rat, GK rat) using the OLED catheter platform. In the experimental group where a total of 798 millijoules (mJ) of light energy was delivered to the small intestine, there was a trend of decreased blood sugar and reduced insulin resistance compared to the control group.

 

Additionally, other medical improvements, such as a reduction in liver fibrosis, were observed. This represents the world’s first results of conducting light therapy by inserting OLED components into the body.

Millijoule (mJ): One-thousandth of a joule (Joule), a unit of energy. The amount of light emitted from a light source is typically represented in milliwatts (mW) per unit time. The millijoule is calculated by multiplying the milliwatt by time (seconds). In this study, a red light of 1.33 milliwatts from the OLED catheter was shone for 10 minutes (600 seconds), delivering a total light energy of 798 mJ.

 

[heading: Figure 1. Schematic of the light therapy process using the OLED catheter, photos of the device, and graphs of the animal experiment results.]

 

The research, jointly led by Dr. Sim Jee hoon and Ph.D. student Chae Hyeonwook from Professor Yoo Seunghyup’s laboratory at our university, and Ph.D. student Kwon Jin-hee from Professor Park Do-hyun’s laboratory at Seoul Asan Hospital, Ulsan University College of Medicine, was published in the online edition of the international academic journal ‘Science Advances’ on September 1, 2023. (Paper Title: OLED catheters for inner-body phototherapy: A case of type 2 diabetes mellitus improved via duodenal photobiomodulation)

 

Professor Yoo Seunghyup commented, “Securing OLED technology for biomedical applications is one of the crucial tasks in opening new horizons for the OLED industry, which has mainly been confined to the display or lighting sectors. This research exemplifies the importance of systematic convergent research and collaboration between device and medical groups in exploring new application areas and acquiring core technologies.”

 

Furthermore, Professor Park Do-hyun from Seoul Asan Hospital said, “The OLED light exposure in the small intestine appears to affect the intestinal microbiome, leading to an increase in beneficial bacteria and a decrease in harmful bacteria, thus improving blood sugar levels, reducing insulin resistance, and inhibiting liver fibrosis in type 2 diabetes. This research, which utilizes the ideal light characteristics of OLED, promises a broad range of applications for in-body light therapy in the future. However, the results obtained are from small animals. Sequential verification stages, from small animals to larger animals to humans, are necessary, and research on the underlying mechanism should be carried out in tandem.” He emphasized the significance of the study.

 

The research was conducted with the support of the Korea Research Foundation Leading Research Center project (Human-Attached Light Therapy Engineering Research Center) and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute’s research operating cost support project (ICT Material⦁Component⦁Equipment Independence & Challenge Technology Development).

*Reference1: NEWS (kaist.ac.kr)

**Reference2: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adh8619

Ph.D. Woochan Lee, Ph.D. Candidate Hyeonwook Chae and Sangin Hahn, Integrated Master’s and Doctoral Program Student (advisor Seunghyup Yoo) won Best Student Paper Award at Optica APC 2023 Conference

 

Woochan Lee(Ph.D.), Hyeonwook Chae(Ph.D. candidate), and Sangin Hahn(Integrated Master’s and Doctoral Program Student) in EE Professor Seunghyup Yoo’s lab received Best Student Paper Awards at the 2023 Optica APC International Conference held in Busan, South Korea.

The APC (Advanced Photonics Congress) is a prestigious academic conference in the field of optics and photonics organized by the Optica (formerly OSA) group. It specializes in optical materials, optical signal processing, optical communications, and integrated optics.

 

[From left: Woochan Lee(Ph.D.), Hyeonwook Chae(Ph.D. candidate), and Sangin Hahn(Integrated Master’s and Doctoral Program Student), and Prof. Seunghyup Yoo]

Professor Yoo Seunghyup’s Lab graduate Dr. Jee Hoon Sim awarded the ‘UDC Innovative Research Award’ at the 2023 International Meeting on Information Display (IMID).

 

Our school has won the UDC Innovative Research Award at the 2023 International Conference on Information Display.

 

 

The UDC Innovative Research and Pioneering Technology Awards are presented to individuals or teams recognized for creating innovative ideas or research plans that influence the organic electronics and display industry.

The UDC Awards come with a prize money of 15 million won. Last year, two students from our department also won awards in all categories.

 

The title of the paper of this year’s recipient, Dr. Sim Jee Hoon, is ‘OLED for Healthcare: Management of Diabetes via Inner-Body Photobiomodulation’.

 

Awards Ceremony: From the left, Dr. Jee Hoon Sim (UDC award winner), Dr. Mike Weber (Vice President in charge of UDC PHOLED research and development), and Jung Ki-woon (Winner of the UDC Advanced Technology Award from Sungkyunkwan University).

 

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Professor Kim Song Min’s research team develops next-generation XR ultra-precision positioning technology

 

 

EE Professor Kim Joo-Young Developed A ChatGPT Core AI Semiconductor with A 2.4-fold Improvement in Price efficiency

 

 

 

The ChatGPT released by OpenAI has captured global attention, and everyone is closely observing the changes this technology will bring out.

This technology is based on large language models (LLM), which represent an unprecedented scale of artificial intelligence (AI) models compared to conventional AI.

However, the operation of these models requires a significant number of high-performance GPUs, leading to astronomical computing costs.  

 

KAIST (President: Lee Kwang-Hyung) announced that research team led by EE Professor Kim Joo-Young Kim has successfully developed an AI semiconductor that efficiently accelerates the inference operations of large language models, which play a crucial role in ChatGPT. 

The developed AI semiconductor, named the ‘Latency Processing Unit (LPU),’ efficiently accelerates the inference operations of large language models. It incorporates a high-speed computing engine capable of maximizing memory bandwidth utilization and performing all necessary inference computations rapidly.

Additionally, it comes equipped built-in networking capabilities, making it easily expandable with multiple accelerators. This LPU-based acceleration appliance server achieved up to a 50% higher performance and approximately 2.4 times better performance-to-price ratio compared to a supercomputer based on the industry-leading high-performance GPU, NVIDIA A100.

 

This advancement holds the potential to replace high-performance GPUs in data centers that are experiencing a rapid surge in demand for generative AI services. This research was conducted by Professor HyperExcel Co., founded by Professor Kim Joo-Young and achieved the remarkable accomplishment of receiving the “Engineering Best Presentation Award” at the International Design Automation Conference (DAC 2023) held in San Francisco on July 12th (U.S. time).

DAC is a prestigious international conference in the field of semiconductor design, particularly showcasing global semiconductor design technologies related to Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP).

DAC attracts participation from renowned semiconductor design companies such as Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, TSMC, as well as top universities including Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

 

Among the world’s notable semiconductor technologies, Professor Kim’s team stands out as the sole recipient of an award for AI semiconductor technology tailored for large language models.

This award acknowledges their AI semiconductor solution as a groundbreaking means to drastically reduce the substantial costs associated with inference operations for large language models on the global stage.

 

Professor Kim stated, “With the new processor ‘LPU’ for future large AI computations, I intend to pioneer the global market and take a lead over big tech companies in terms of technological prowess.”

(Note: The provided translation is an elaboration and summary of the original text for clarity and readability.)

 

Professor Joo-Young Kim’s Research Team Published Article in CACM Magazine: “South Korea’s Nationwide Effort for AI Semiconductor Industry”

 

Recently, the research team led by Professor Joo-Young Kim published an article titled “South Korea’s Nationwide Effort for AI Semiconductor Industry” in CACM (Communications of the ACM), one of the leading monthly academic journals in the field of computer science.

 

 

 

Professor Shim Hyun-Chul(Principal Investigators), Professor Kim Min-Jun, and Collaborative Research Team Develop World’s First Humanoid Pilot, “PiBot.”

 

Recently, there has been a lot of attention on KAIST’s development of the humanoid pilot “PiBot” following the legendary pilot Maverick’s flights in the recent movie “Top Gun: Maverick.”

KAIST (President Lee Kwang-Hyung) announced on the 19th that they plan to develop a practical humanoid robot capable of directly piloting an aircraft based on understanding technical manuals written in natural language.

 

The collaborative research team, led by KAIST Professor Shim Hyun-Chul and including Professor Choo Jae-Gul, Professor Yoon Kuk-Jin, and Professor Kim Minjun, applied artificial intelligence and robotics technology to develop an “NLP-based humanoid pilot robot,” as part of the Future Challenge Project, which involves reading and comprehending pilot manuals written in general language.

 

The robot was able to sit in the cockpit of a conventional aircraft without any modification and directly operate various controls, showcasing a different approach from conventional aircraft’s autopilot systems or unmanned aerial vehicles that can only perform unmanned flights.

 

The pilot robot being developed by the research team can memorize and flawlessly operate the entire global Jeppesen Chart, which is impossible for human pilots.

It can also immediately respond by leveraging the recent breakthroughs in ChatGPT technology, recalling aircraft operation manuals and Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) procedures, and calculating real-time safe routes based on the aircraft’s flight status.

 

The robot can accurately perceive the internal and external conditions of the cockpit and the aircraft using the onboard cameras, precisely manipulate various switches, and control its robotic arms and hands with high precision even in highly vibrating aircraft environments.

 

Currently, the pilot robot is capable of performing all aircraft operations, including starting the engine, taxiing, takeoff, cruising, and landing, in a flight simulator. The research team plans to apply the pilot robot to an actual light aircraft for validation.

 

Professor Shim Hyun-Chul, the project leader, stated, “The humanoid pilot robot has high practicality and applicability, as it can immediately perform autonomous flights without any modification to existing aircraft. It can also operate a variety of devices, including aircraft, cars, and armored vehicles, making it highly useful in situations where there is a shortage of human resources.”

 

The ongoing project is supported by the Future Challenge Project from the Defense Science Institute (total funding of 5.7 billion KRW) and has been in development since 2022 through the collaboration of Professor Shim Hyun-Chul from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at KAIST (project leader), Professor Choo Jae-Gul from the AI Graduate School, Professor Yoon Kuk-Jin from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Professor Kim Min-Jun from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

 

The project is expected to be completed in 2026 and explore commercialization plans for civilian and military applications.

 

 

Professor Insu Yun has received the Frontiers of Science Award at the ICBS (International Conference on Basic Science).

 

[Professor Insu Yun]

 

 

OLEDs are light-emitting devices that are being utilized as cutting-edge display technology, with various advantages such as clear image quality, thin profile, and the capability to fabricate flexible devices such as foldable or rollable displays.

In such applications, securing sufficient efficiency and lifespan of the red, green, and blue light sources that make up the three primary colors of light while also securing high color purity of the three primary colors is critical, but the technology to secure all these requirements in blue OLED devices is considered to be a big challenge.

Professor Seunghyup Yoo’s research team from the School of EE in collaboration with Professor Kim Yoon-hee’s research team from the Department of Chemistry at Gyeongsang National University succeeded in implementing a deep-blue organic light-emitting diode (OLED) device with the world’s highest level of efficiency.

Dr. Hyungseok Kim from Professor Yoo’s lab at KAIST (currently a visiting researcher from Kyushu University), Dr. Hyeong-jin Cheon from Gyeongsang National University (currently a visiting researcher at Imperial College London), and Donggyun Lee, a Ph.D. candidate from KAIST (in Professor Yoo’s lab), were the joint first authors of this study.

The research was published in the online version of the international journal ‘Science Advances’ on May 31, 2023. (Paper title: Toward highly efficient deep-blue OLEDs: Tailoring the multiresonance-induced TADF molecules for suppressed excimer formation and near-unity horizontal dipole ratio).

The team focused on the design of boron-based thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials, which are emerging as the next-generation emitters for the implementation of deep-blue OLED devices. These materials have the advantage of achieving excellent color purity, but due to their flat molecular structure, strong interactions between molecules can limit deep blue colors to low concentrations.

When the concentration of luminescent molecules is increased to secure sufficient efficiency for OLED devices, the issue of not being able to fully exploit the color purity advantage inherent in the emitters arises.

The research team not only simplified the synthesis process and improved the low yield compared to the conventional boron-based materials known to be very difficult to synthesize, but also successfully unveiled a molecular structure that can suppress intermolecular interactions from the perspective of molecular dynamics.

By implementing this through molecular design, the team solved the challenging issue of color purity and efficiency degradation. Unlike previous trials and errors that were carried out empirically, the research team established a comprehensive and analytical methodology, theoretically predicting structures that can lead to maximum efficiency, and successfully implemented a deep-blue OLED with more than 35% maximum external quantum efficiency by grafting the high-efficiency organic luminescent material they designed onto the device structure.

This is one of the world’s highest levels of efficiency for deep-blue OLED unit devices at this wavelength.

Professor Yoo commented, “Securing high-efficiency deep-blue OLED technology is one of the essential tasks in perfecting OLED displays as the ultimate technology, and this study is a good example that demonstrates the importance of systematic integrated research and collaboration between materials and device groups in solving challenges.”

 

 

 

On June 26, 2023, the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) presented the “Minister’s Award” to professor Youngik Sohn during the opening ceremony of the ‘Quantum Korea 2023 Conference’ held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul.

Professor Sohn was recognized for his contributions to advancing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) semiconductor industry.

[Awards Ceremonies]