Welcome to Yujia's homepage
Building hardware for machine intelligence across scales
About me
I'm Yujia Yuan, an Electrical Engineering PhD student at Stanford University in Prof. Zhenan Bao's group, where I work on high-resolution tactile sensing and sensor fusion for robotics. I am also honored to be a Shoucheng Zhang Fellow. Before Stanford, I earned my BASc in Electrical Engineering with a Physics Minor from the University of Waterloo, working in quantum science and photonics with Prof. Michal Bajcsy and Prof. Simarjeet Saini.
I build physical hardware for AI across scale — from atoms to microelectronics to sensors and robotics. My goal is to turn deep physics and broad engineering knowledge into real-world systems that help humanity to advance living quality.
Selected papers
Stretchable transistors for integrated circuit
Fabricating stretchable complementary transistors and circuits with historical high speed for robotic skin.
A bio-sensor that stays accurate over time
Using paired transistors to subtract environmental and device instability of sensors that measure how stressful you are.
High-speed stretchable transistors
Large-scale, high density design of stretchable transistors and circuits. One step closer to electronic robotic skin
Automated polarization measurement for white light
Two motorized wave-plates + broadband spectrometer. Bloch-sphere visualization across wavelengths.
Engineering and physics explorations
High density robotic tactile sensors
Capacitive pressure sensor array with a density comparable to that on human fingertip.
Solid-state quantum computer
Using TEM to remove atoms from a perfect crystal and form vacancies for quantum computing.
Diffraction grating for atom cooling
Simulating and fabricating an optical grating that generates required beams for cooling atoms.
Control cold-atom quatum computer
Simulating the behavior of atomic quantum computers, and set up PID for driving lasers.
Measuring glass thickness without touching
Building up a interferometer that can measure thickness of transparent objects with white light.
Algorithm for photonic pattern design
Remove sharp edges, thin bridges and small holes for photonic design so they can be fabricated.
Automated motors for optics calibration
With photodiode feedback, this motor system can auto calibrate when coupled laser is weak.
Household milk adulteration detector
A miniature, household device that measures milk adulteration. Spun out as Savormetrics.
NMR quantum system simulation
Numerical simulation in Python of NMR system's quantum behavior under detuning.
Motor system for controlled wet etching
A full self-made system that etches optical fiber at controlled speed.
Generate lovely laser beam patterns
We managed to generate rose and flake-like patterns with laser beams under control.
Safety monitor for underground miners
An ultrasonic sensing system that alarms when mining workers are too close to obstructions.
Custom humidity and clock display
Single-board Linux computer, kernel-driver bring-up, userland alignment, OLED output.
Line tracing self-driving car
A self-driving car tracing the black guide line with only one photodiode as the input.
High voltage and explosive experiments
Hand-wound Tesla coil with visible arcs, copper-oxide thermite. High schooler's YOLO project.
Self-grown copper-sulfate crystal
CuSO₄ crystal cultivated from saturated solution over weeks. Looks nice under light.
Places I've been
Story continues
My current research focuses on tactile sensing for robotics, but the broader theme is sensor fusion: building the bridge between the physical world and the intelligent systems that perceive and act on it. I believe this direction has impact beyond robotics, including biomedical wearables, AR/VR interfaces, and the next generation of physical machines. Long term, I care deeply about moving these technologies out of the lab and into real-world applications.