The Lab
The world is running hotter, faster, and more complicated than ever, and the work that holds our modern world together—across quantum science, photonics, microfluidics, bioelectronics, high-frequency systems, materials, sensing, and all the interdisciplinary combinations that modern research demands—still depends on people who know how to design, build, measure, and analyze physical things. The T.J. Rodgers RLE Laboratory exists for those people.
Opened in 2022 through the generosity of Dr. T.J. Rodgers and strengthened by Keysight’s donation of world-class oscilloscopes, the Rodgers Lab was built to meet the rapidly rising demands of advanced prototyping, materials processing, and precision measurement across all areas of RLE and beyond. In the lineage of MIT’s Radiation Laboratory—which united scientists, engineers, government, and industry to advance radar during World War II—the Rodgers Lab carries forward a simple idea: put talented researchers from many disciplines in the same room, give them tools and expertise they can trust, and support them as they push the frontiers of PI-directed research. Users choose how to move their work forward—what tools to use, when to collaborate, when to iterate, and when (or whether) to ask for guidance—while the Rodgers RLE Laboratory provides the infrastructure, judgment, and academic-plus-industrial experience that help them get it right. It is an expression of the THINK–MAKE–MEASURE ethos—alongside a cold brew tap to jump-start the thinking.
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Over the past decade, research across MIT has shifted toward devices and systems that demand tighter tolerances, new materials, smaller geometries, higher frequencies, and fabrication techniques that challenge conventional workflows. The Rodgers RLE Lab was designed specifically to support these needs: picosecond laser micromachining that preserves delicate polymers; 3D surface metrology capable of nanometer-scale height resolution; precision plating for quantum and RF packaging; rapid PCB and flex-circuit prototyping; and the means to create the tooling, fixtures, and environmental controls required for experiments spanning cryogenic physics, soft biointerfaces, organ-on-chip systems, optical stacks, and ultra-high-vacuum assemblies. Beyond serving individual research groups, the lab actively works to procure shared capabilities that dozens of teams rely on—and the emerging needs that early-career researchers may not yet recognize.
This year alone, the Rodgers Lab supported hundreds of researchers from labs, centers, and departments across MIT, enabling progress in quantum computing, integrated photonics, optical neural stimulation, microfluidic diagnostics, soft robotics, high-frequency electronics, and next-generation manufacturing. Internal estimates suggest more than $500,000 in annual community value generated through shared equipment, rapid iteration, technical training, and hands-on engineering support. As research across MIT continues to evolve toward ever more demanding systems and materials, the Rodgers RLE Lab aims to adapt with it, expanding its capabilities and anticipating the shared needs of diverse research groups. The laboratory remains committed to providing an environment where tough-tech ideas become real, where rapid iteration and careful measurement coexist, and where the next generation of engineers and scientists learns the craft of building the world that comes next.
The Mission
The T.J. Rodgers RLE Laboratory is dedicated to serving as a cutting-edge hub for advancing knowledge and best practices in the creation, assembly, and testing of high-performance prototypes spanning all facets of RLE (Research Laboratory of Electronics). Our core pillars of electronics, photonics, and packaging rest on a foundation of high-performance digital fabrication resources. We also foster dynamic connections between researchers and trusted external resources to advance our mission.
Staff
Steven F. Nagle, Ph.D.
Managing Director
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, MIT Class of 2001
I provide technical guidance, specialized tools, and facilities to help RLE students and staff build complex prototypes and research apparatus. I returned to MIT for the excitement of new discoveries, to lend my experience and expertise to future technology leaders, and to learn. If you are doing research in RLE, or anywhere else at MIT, I’d love to talk to you. Please walk in any time during open hours or schedule an in-person or Zoom meeting with me. The lab will continue to develop based on your input and feedback.
Schedule me to learn more and see how I can help you out!
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Throughout my career I have built a broad base of engineering experience to further science. In 1994 as an undergraduate I discovered new properties of electromagnetic wave propagation in structurally chiral media (SCM), quickly followed by extension of that foundation to include coupled electromagnetic and elastodynamic wave propagation in piezoelectric SCM through an NSF Fellowship as a first-year graduate student.
I then spent more than a decade focused on micro- (MEMS) and nano-scale device design and fabrication, including the electrical machinery for the MIT Micro Gas Turbine Generator in my Ph.D. Following Ph.D., I developed and optimized the fabrication process for an interferometer in what was (is?) the smallest commercial NIR spectrometer. The interferometer comprises a tunable Fabry-Perot interferometer made of flip-chip bonded SOI movable- and fixed-mirror chips that include thick-film optics on an integrated curved mirror.
As Director of Probe Development in the metrology division of Veeco Instruments, now a division of Bruker, I invented the SNL™ probe whose characteristics greatly enabled a new PeakForce Tapping™ feedback-control mode that vastly improved measurement precision and also ease of use as an integral part of the Bruker ScanAsyst™ mode. The facility that we created, founded as the Veeco Nanofabrication Center, continues to operate and produce novel probe designs that enable new science.
In 2010, I migrated to biotechnology, leveraging my engineering and mentoring skills to teach while building an understanding of biological processes and equipment. In the Biological Engineering department at MIT I taught MIT 20.309, a hands-on laboratory-based course in precision biological instrumentation focusing on optics, electronics and signals and systems, and 20.345, a companion student-proposed project class. In 20.309 at the time, students built, from scratch, both an epi-fluorescence microscope and a high-sensitivity fluorometer that measured DNA melting curves to teach the basics within any quantitative-PCR instrument. The performance of these spartan instruments routinely rivaled that of highly-developed commercial instruments.
At Q-State (now Quiver) I led drug-screening electrophysiology data-production for pharma clients, as well as the engineering of the instruments. Along with my staff I built and operated the all-optical electrophysiology Firefly microscope, which at that time could measure and process action potentials from several hundreds of neurons in one FOV, 10s of thousands per day, producing TBytes of movies recording action potentials. I also developed the Swarm high-throughput screening instrument, which measured whole-well electrical responses and was used to screen a 200,000 compound library, in search of candidates for a pain therapeutic, in 25 days.
At Cellino Biotech, as VP of Engineering and Automation, I directed hardware and software development (local and cloud-based) toward high-volume, autologous stem cell manufacturing. I built and developed software for the first prototype system for automated laser-based cell poration and lysis and, collaborating with Cellino biologists, performed the first closed-loop cell culture management experiments, subsequently implementing plate-handling robotics automation to do this at scale. This work was featured in CEO and Co-founder Dr. Nabiha Saklayen’s TED talk on the promise of regenerative medicine.
Founders
T.J. Rodgers generously provided the funding to create and support this prototyping laboratory at MIT, The T.J. Rodgers RLE Laboratory. Dr. Rodgers was the founding CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation in 1982 and served as the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer until April 2016. He is a former chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and SunPower Corp. and currently sits on the boards of directors of high-technology companies, including Enphase (solar energy electronics), Solaria (solar cells) and Enovix (silicon lithium-ion batteries), among others.
Dr. Doug Baney is the Worldwide Corporate Director of Education for Keysight Technologies. His experience spans over 30 years in Microwave and Photonics technologies at HP, Agilent and Keysight Laboratories, with more than 90 academic publications and seminars and 240 patents globally. He was responsible for more than $500 million in value generation through technology innovation. He led the technical team that invented the first mass-produced laser-based optical mouse. He was General Co-Chair of the Optical Fiber Communications Conference and received the highest technical distinction of Fellow of the International Electronic and Electrical Engineering Society. He is an Honorary Visiting Professor with The University of Edinburgh.
Steven B Leeb, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering, was instrumental in establishing the Cypress Engineering Design Studio (EDS for short) in MIT EECS, a premier teaching area used by a variety of project-based classes. He oversaw the solution for an additional space dedicated to prototyping for research projects and graduate students. The result is the T.J. Rodgers RLE Laboratory.