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Discovery of Promising Evidence"Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy" May Reduce Internet Gaming Disorder in College
A research team led by Professor Anderson Sungmin Yoon and Minah Kim has developed a "Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Gaming (MBCT-G)" program to address internet gaming disorder among college students, and has found promising evidence of its therapeutic effectiveness. The research was conducted under the close supervision of the world-leading scholar, Willem Kuyken, director of Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and has drawn significant attention from academic circles worldwide for presenting a new therapeutic alternative-using psychological intervention to ease internet gaming disorder, a growing public health issue among young adults. Internet gaming disorder refers to a state of excessive immersion in gaming severe enough to seriously disrupt daily life. This is particularly common among college students, who often turn to gaming to relieve academic or career-related stress as they begin living independently, away from parental supervision. To address this problem, Professor Yoon’s research team newly adapted and modified "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy"—previously used to treat depression—to fit the specific characteristics of gaming disorder. The program combines mindfulness meditation training — which helps students observe their thoughts, emotions, and impulses objectively when a strong urge to game arises — with cognitive therapy that helps them decenter from these urges and respond more skillfully. The research team conducted an experiment involving 46 college students at high risk of internet gaming disorder. Over the course of an eight weeks’s intervention, participating students practiced mindfulness meditation, social skills, and self-care strantegies each week, while also planning and carrying out alternative pleasurable activities—such as physical activities, social/recreational activities, and creative hobbies—that allowed them to find enjoyment in daily life beyond gaming. As a result, students who completed the program showed a meaningful reduction in gaming addiction symptoms, along with decreases in stress and anxiety. Above all, the most significant outcome was a marked improvement in students' "self-control"—their ability to overcome the urge to game on their own. This effect remained even one month after the program ended, demonstrating a sustained effect. Professor Yoon of SKKU explained the significance of the research, stating, " This study offers promising evidence for a psychological intervention that could help college students and adolescents break the vicious cycle of impulsively immersing themselves in gaming during particularly challenging periods in their development.." He added, "If widely adopted by college counseling centers and gaming addiction prevention centers, MBCT-G could help address IGD-related problems more efficiently, as its group-format delivery requires fewer clinical resources.." Meanwhile, this research was supported by research funding from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency for the development of game-based digital therapeutics technology. SKKU RESEARCH STORY A Pilot Study of a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Internet Gaming Disorder Among College-Aged Students in South Korea Mindfulness (DOI) A Anderson Sungmin Yoon Profile →
- No. 391
- 2026-08-07
- 150
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Filling Polymers with Charge, Reconnecting Broken Pathways
A research team led by Professor Kang Bosoek of the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology(SAINT), Department of Nano Engineering, and Department of Semiconductor Convergence Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University has developed two new molecular design technologies to enhance the electrical conductivity of organic electronic materials. One technology generates a greater number of charge carriers within a polymer, while the other connects transport pathways so that charge can move without interruption. The findings were published respectively in the international journals Journal of the American Chemical Society and Nature Communications. The paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society was also selected as a Cover Article. Organic semiconductors are lightweight and flexible materials expected to be used in next-generation displays, wearable electronics, and sensors. However, for practical use in electronic devices, their electrical conductivity must be improved—which requires generating a sufficient amount of charge and ensuring that the charge, once generated, can move rapidly through the material. Through two separate studies, the research team addressed these two challenges in a complementary way. The first study developed a molecular-level design technology that generates a greater number of charge carriers within a polymer. The team covalently attached the polar molecule aminoalkylsilane to the n-type conducting polymer PBFDO, substantially increasing electron concentration. As the bonded polar molecules aligned in a consistent direction, they naturally induced electron generation without relying heavily on external dopants. As a result, the electrical conductivity of the thin film improved to over 3,000 S cm−1, achieving a high doping efficiency of up to approximately 1.79 free electrons per polymer repeat unit. This is the first study to raise the doping limit to a near-theoretical level, demonstrating potential applications across a range of organic electronic devices, including polymer electrodes and light-emitting devices. The second study proposed a new strategy for designing the charge transport pathway itself. By thinly coating a conducting polymer onto a thin film of a two-dimensional covalent organic framework (2D COF), the team implemented a "molecular bridge" structure that connects charge transport pathways broken by the polycrystalline structure. This structure allows the conducting polymer to serve as a bridge linking separated COF crystals, enabling charge to move more smoothly. The optimized COF–conducting polymer heterostructure thin film showed an electrical conductivity improvement of 109 times compared to a single COF thin film, and approximately 10 times compared to a single conducting polymer thin film. The team also succeeded in fabricating a uniform, large-area thin film at the scale of a 2-inch wafer, and when applied to a nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas sensor, the film detected concentrations as low as 74 ppb with a rapid response time of approximately 20 seconds. Professor Kang Bosoek said, "This research addressed, at the molecular level, the two key factors that determine the performance of organic electronic materials—charge generation and charge transport," adding, "We plan to expand this research toward high-performance electronic devices by developing heterojunction structures with a variety of semiconductor materials." The research team recently published a study in Nature Communications proposing a plateau transistor that maintains a constant current by leveraging the localization of polarons, the charge carriers in organic electronic materials. Building on this, the team is expanding its research scope beyond charge generation and transport to explore the use of charge states as a new information-processing function. skku research story SKKU RESEARCH STORY Near-Theoretical-Limit Doping of Poly(benzodifurandione) through Carbonyl-Driven Aminoalkylsilane Attachment Journal of the American Chemical Society (DOI) Molecular bridge engineering in covalent organic frameworks for enhanced electronic transport Nature Communications (DOI) Small polaron-mediated zero differential transconductance of 2D semiconductor/CoFe2O4 heterojunctions for plateau transistor applications Nature Communications (DOI) BK Boseok Kang PURE Profile →
- No. 390
- 2026-08-04
- 251
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Professor Il Jeon's Team Develops Surface Acoustic Wave-Based Reconfigurable AI Semiconductor Device
A research team led by Professor Il Jeon of the Department of Nano Engineering and the Sungkyunkwan Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT) at Sungkyunkwan University, including Dr. Sihyeok Kim and Dr. Jang Woo Lee, has developed a next-generation artificial intelligence semiconductor device capable of independently implementing long-term and short-term memory within a single device using surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The research team proposed a new concept of a reconfigurable artificial synapse that overcomes the limitations of conventional memristors by selectively controlling long-term and short-term memory through electrical signals and surface acoustic waves, respectively. The developed technology is expected to contribute to the realization of ultra-low-power neuromorphic computing and next-generation AI semiconductor devices. As the performance of artificial intelligence continues to improve, the amount of power required for data processing is also increasing rapidly. Neuromorphic computing, which performs memory and computation simultaneously in a manner similar to the human brain, has therefore attracted considerable attention as a next-generation computing technology. Artificial synapses capable of implementing both long-term and short-term memory are essential for neuromorphic computing. However, conventional memristors generally rely only on electrical stimulation to control memory behavior. Repeated electrical stimulation can cause device degradation and reduced reliability, while also making it difficult to independently control long-term and short-term memory. To address these limitations, the research team employed surface acoustic waves, which are mechanical waves that propagate along the surface of a solid, as a new control signal. By integrating a monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) memristor and a SAW device onto a single platform, the researchers designed the system so that electrical signals were responsible for forming long-term memory, while SAWs were used to control short-term memory through a non-contact mechanism. This configuration enabled the team to realize a reconfigurable artificial synapse in which previously stored long-term memory remained intact, while short-term memory could be selectively generated and erased. The researchers reproduced biological short-term synaptic plasticity by adjusting the intensity, pulse width, and interval of the SAWs. They also confirmed that short-term memory could be repeatedly controlled without damaging electrically stored long-term memory. In addition, the device maintained stable operation without performance degradation even after more than 10,000 seconds of repeated operation. When the device was applied to reservoir computing, it achieved a recognition accuracy of 96.1% in a character classification task, demonstrating its potential as practical neuromorphic AI hardware. The researchers stated, “Conventional memristors rely on repeated electrical stimulation to implement both long-term and short-term memory, which limits device reliability and reconfigurability. This study is significant because it presents a new neuromorphic device platform in which electrically stored long-term memory can be preserved while only short-term memory is selectively controlled in a non-contact manner using surface acoustic waves.” They added, “In the future, we plan to combine large-area integration technologies with surface acoustic wave control over a wide range of frequencies to develop more energy-efficient next-generation AI semiconductors and neuromorphic computing systems.” SAW-Based Reconfigurable 2D TMD Memristor SKKU RESEARCH STORY Surface Acoustic Wave-Guided Reconfigurable Memristor Access Publication (DOI) JI JEON IL Profile →
- No. 389
- 2026-07-28
- 667
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Development of a New Indicator to Speed Up Metallic Glass Discovery
A research team led by Dongwoo Lee, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), working with a team led by Yanhui Liu at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has developed a new electrical resistivity-based indicator for rapidly screening alloy compositions with high glass-forming ability. The findings were published in Advanced Materials. Metallic glasses are alloys with a unique structure in which atoms are arranged irregularly, as in glass, rather than in the ordered arrangement found in conventional crystalline metals. Many metallic glasses exhibit high strength and wear resistance and can be precisely formed into complex shapes, making them promising materials for robotic components, aerospace systems, and next-generation medical devices. However, glass-forming ability (GFA), which describes how readily an alloy forms a glass rather than a crystal, is difficult to predict. Researchers have traditionally had to fabricate numerous compositions and evaluate them individually using X-ray diffraction or thermal analysis. This process requires considerable time and expense, making the discovery of new metallic glass compositions challenging. The research team focused on electrical resistivity, which changes as the atomic arrangement an alloy evolves. The team fabricated thin-film libraries with continuous composition gradients and conducted controlled annealing experiments on approximately 3,500 alloy compositions. Alloys with high GFA showed relatively small decreases in electrical resistivity after annealing, reflecting their greater resistance to the development of long-range crystalline order. In contrast, alloys with low GFA crystallized more extensively and exhibited much larger resistivity drops. Measuring the electrical resistivity of a single composition takes only a few seconds, making the approach hundreds of times faster than conventional diffraction or calorimetry-based characterization. The method can rapidly map GFA trends across broad composition spaces without complex fabrication or and characterization procedures. The researchers also confirmed the same composition-dependent trends in melt-spun ribbon samples produced through a markedly different cooling and solidification process, further demonstrating the reliability of the approach. “The electrical resistivity change measured in this study provides a fast and intuitive readout of atomic disorder and crystallization resistance,” Lee said. “It is like having a map for navigating an enormously complex multicomponent alloy space containing hundreds of millions of possible combinations. We expect this approach to substantially accelerate the discovery of next-generation bulk metallic glasses and the development of related advanced materials.” This research was supported by the BK21 Four Project's graduate student overseas training program, the Technology Innovation Development Program of the Korea Technology and Information Promotion Agency for SMEs (TIPA) under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Schematic illustration of a metallic-glass discovery platform that fabricates hundreds of alloy compositions in a single run and rapidly evaluates their glass-forming ability based on changes in electrical resistivity upon crystallization. SKKU RESEARCH STORY Electrical Resistivity Change upon Crystallization as a Robust Descriptor for Metallic Glass Forming Ability Access Publication (DOI) DL Dong Woo Lee PURE Profile →
- No. 388
- 2026-07-28
- 715
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SKKU Identifies World’s First ‘Zinc Oxide Spin Qubit’ — a Breakthrough for Semiconductor-Based Quantum Technology
A research team led by Professor Hosung Seo of the Department of Quantum Information Engineering and the SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, working with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Washington, has identified—for the first time—an atomic defect structure in the zinc oxide (ZnO) semiconductor with outstanding properties for use as a “spin qubit,” a core building block of future quantum computers, quantum communications, and quantum sensors. The results were published in PRX Quantum, one of the most prestigious journals in quantum information science. Electron spins trapped at point defects in solid-state crystals can operate at room temperature and retain quantum information for long periods, making them a leading platform not only for quantum computing but also for quantum communications and ultra-sensitive quantum sensing. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been the most prominent candidate, but diamond is difficult to grow as large-area, high-quality crystals and is poorly suited to standard semiconductor fabrication, posing major obstacles to the integration and mass production of quantum devices. To overcome this bottleneck, the team turned to zinc oxide, a material already widely used in the semiconductor industry and whose physical properties are well established. Zinc oxide is considered an ideal host for qubits: it is “magnetically quiet,” containing almost no nuclear spins, and can be grown as ultra-high-purity crystals. Using state-of-the-art first-principles quantum simulations on supercomputers, the team systematically screened candidate defects across the periodic table and designed a “molybdenum–oxygen-vacancy complex,” in which a molybdenum (Mo) atom replaces a zinc (Zn) atom next to a missing oxygen atom, and analyzed its properties in detail. The analysis showed that, under illumination, the defect emits bright, sharp light in the visible range with high efficiency. Notably, its Huang-Rhys factor—a measure of how much energy leaks into crystal vibrations during light emission—is far smaller than that of previously known defects in zinc oxide, confirming that the defect can produce the sharp, well-defined emission ideally suited for quantum light sources. The team further showed that the defect’s electron spin can stably retain quantum information for about 4 milliseconds (4/1,000 of a second) even in the presence of surrounding magnetic noise. Combined with strong spin-orbit coupling and a stable, symmetric structure, these properties enable high-fidelity “single-shot readout”—determining the spin state accurately in a single measurement—as the team demonstrated theoretically. Single-shot readout is an essential capability for quantum error correction and quantum networks. Professor Hosung Seo said, “This work is the first to show that a robust, deep-level spin qubit is feasible in zinc oxide, a representative oxide semiconductor. Combined with mature oxide-semiconductor growth and fabrication technologies, it could develop into an integrated, scalable platform for quantum light sources, quantum sensors, and quantum networks.” Taejoon Park, a Ph.D. candidate at SKKU, participated as a co-first author together with researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Professor Hosung Seo served as a co-corresponding author with Professor Kai-Mei C. Fu of the University of Washington and Professor Yuan Ping of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. SKKU RESEARCH STORY Deep Spin Defects in Zinc Oxide for High-Fidelity Single-Shot Readout Journal: PRX QUANTUM 7 H Hosung Seo PURE Profile →
- No. 387
- 2026-07-23
- 675
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Professor Jungrae Kim Wins Korea’s First-Ever Best Paper Award at ISCA 2026, the “Olympics of AI Semiconductors”
A research team headed by Professor Jungrae Kim of the Department of Semiconductor Systems Engineering has won the Best Paper Award at the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) 2026. ISCA is the world's most prestigious conference in computer architecture and AI semiconductor systems. With a history spanning more than half a century, the conference is often described as the “Olympics of AI semiconductor architecture,” and even having a paper accepted is considered a major academic achievement. The award marks the first time in ISCA’s history that a Korean university has received the Best Paper Award. No Korean institution had previously received the award or even had a paper selected as a Best Paper candidate. This achievement further strengthens the global standing of Sungkyunkwan University and Korea’s semiconductor research community. ISCA 2026 was held from June 27 to July 1 in Raleigh, North Carolina, bringing together approximately 1,000 researchers and industry experts from around the world. Leading global technology giants, including NVIDIA, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, as well as prominent universities worldwide, participated in the conference. A total of 845 state-of-the-art research papers were submitted. Following a rigorous review process, 161 papers were accepted, and Professor Kim’s research was selected as the conference’s Best Paper. The award-winning paper, titled “Cerberus: Cross-Layer ECC Co-Design for Robust and Efficient Memory Protection,” presents an innovative technology that improves the reliability and efficiency of High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. HBM is a critical high-performance memory technology for artificial intelligence systems and has become a major focus of global technological competition amid the rapid expansion of AI. At its core, Cerberus detects and addresses the small data errors that occur while computers store and transfer information more quickly and intelligently than conventional approaches. As HBM is pushed toward its physical performance limits, errors occurring during data storage and transmission are becoming more frequent. These errors can reduce manufacturing yield and cause serious reliability and efficiency problems in large-scale AI infrastructure. Hardware failures already interrupt a substantial proportion of large-scale AI training workloads, significantly reducing the likelihood that long-running training jobs will be completed successfully. Conventional systems protect data through several independent error-correction mechanisms: within the memory device, across the data interface, and at the overall system level. Because these mechanisms were developed and operated separately, they require duplicated redundancy and may introduce unnecessary delays and protection holes. Cerberus, developed by Professor Kim’s research team, unifies these separate protection mechanisms and enables them to share error-correction information. Based on an HBM4-class memory configuration, the proposed technology reduces the storage space dedicated to error-correction redundancy by approximately 33% while simultaneously improving data reliability and system efficiency. Professor Kim’s research team has established a strong international track record in memory reliability and security. Its previous research has repeatedly been selected as a Best Paper Award finalist at leading international computer architecture conferences, including ASPLOS, HPCA, SC, and DATE. The ISCA 2026 Best Paper Award further demonstrates the technical excellence, originality, and academic impact that the research team has built over the years. Professor Jungrae Kim said: “As international competition for technological leadership in artificial intelligence continues to intensify, it is deeply meaningful that our research team has become the first in Korea to receive the Best Paper Award at ISCA, the world’s most prestigious computer architecture conference.” He added: “I hope this research will make a meaningful contribution to improving the reliability of HBM, an essential technology in the AI era. I also hope it will provide a strong technological foundation for Korea’s memory semiconductor industry, a key pillar of the national economy, to maintain its leadership in the global market.” This research was supported by the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation under programs funded by the Korean government. ▲ Schematic of Cerberus's hierarchical ECC co-design (Encode-Once, Decode-Many) ▲ISCA 2026 Best Paper Award certificate Cerberus: Cross-Layer ECC Co-Design for Robust and Efficient Memory Protection Conference: ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2026) JK Jungrae Kim PURE Profile →
- No. 386
- 2026-07-23
- 638
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Development of an AI technology to proactively prevent subway door entrapment accidents
A research team led by Professor Jo Woon Chong of the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, in collaboration with researchers from KAIST and Texas Tech University in the United States, has developed the 'Passenger Movement Estimation System (PMES).' This AI based system predicts passenger movements using CCTV footage to prevent subway door entrapment accidents before they occur. Overcoming the limitations of conventional reactive methods, where sensors only trigger after a passenger has entered the danger zone, this study has drawn significant attention from academia and industry for proactively identifying risks before passengers even reach the boarding area. The research findings are scheduled to be published in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (top 1.89% in JCR), one of the world's most prestigious international journals in the field of transportation systems. Professor Chong, who has led research at Sungkyunkwan University on human centered AI, multimodal signal processing, and AI embedded systems, oversaw this study. Hee Jo, the first author and a Ph.D. student, led the data analysis and AI model design. The research team empirically validated a Passenger Trajectory Model (PTM) showing that when a train is present at or approaching the platform, 97.85% of passengers descending the stairs move directly toward the train doors. The research team explained the significance of the study, stating, "Based on these behavioral patterns, we built a system that captures passenger movements using just a single video frame, allowing us to detect risks in advance before passengers reach the train doors." The research team conducted experiments by classifying passenger movements on station stairs into three categories: Ascending, Descending, and Passing. The results demonstrated that real time classification is possible with a high accuracy of 97.58% using an object detection model. In particular, to maximize practicality, the team proposed SD Net (Subway Door Network), an ultra-lightweight custom model that operates smoothly even in limited computing environments. Furthermore, based on these analysis results, they enhanced the system's completeness by developing a Decision Support System (DSS) that guides train operators on the optimal door closing timing, alongside guidelines for passenger warning alarms. This study is particularly meaningful as the fruit of a global, interdisciplinary collaboration among experts in diverse fields, including civil and environmental engineering (Professor Lisa Lim, KAIST) and electrical and computer engineering (Researcher Yifan Li, Texas Tech University). Based on these findings, the research team presented scientific evidence that transportation systems can move beyond simply operating surveillance CCTVs to establishing proactive response mechanisms that secure passenger safety and minimize train delays. This is expected to serve as a new milestone in preventing persistent subway door accidents in subway environments equipped with platform screen doors (PSDs) or automated control systems. ▲Workflow of the proposed research Published in ieee transactions on intelligent transportation systems SKKU RESEARCH STORY Passenger Trajectory Model and Passenger Movement Estimation System for Preventing Passenger Subway Door Accidents Access Paper: IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (DOI) JC Jowoon Chong PURE Profile →
- No. 385
- 2026-07-20
- 671
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Identifying Cross-National Distribution of Political Rhetoric based on the “Victim-Villain-Hero” Triad
Professor Tay Jeong of the Department of Sociology has analyzed the characteristics of global hashtag movements during the early stages of the Gaza war, drawing on country-specific trending data from social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and a new role-based analytical framework. The study has drawn considerable attention in academic circles for offering a clear and accessible theoretical lens on the flow of wartime public opinion on social media. The Gaza war, which broke out in October 2023, sparked wide-ranging political debate from its earliest days. The study takes as its starting point a debate among the global "progressive" intelligentsia over the symmetry of the conflict. While many mainstream Western intellectuals argued that both sides were driven by primal vengeance, others countered that Palestinian resistance should be understood not as an expression of hatred or revenge but as an expression of hope for liberation. To address this question, Professor Jeong introduced the "Victim–Villain–Hero" model as a qualitative tool for analyzing political oratory. He systematically classified and analyzed war-related hashtag slogans that trended on X across 62 countries worldwide according to this three-role framework. Pro-Palestinian hashtag movements worldwide were dominated by voices highlighting victims' suffering and calling for peace (e.g., #GazaUnderAttack, #CeasefireNOW). However, modes of expression varied by region. Users in Western countries such as those in Europe and the United States tended to emphasize "humanitarian sympathy," mourning victims' suffering and calling for an end to violence, whereas users in Middle Eastern and Arab countries more strongly invoked "heroism," framing victimhood alongside courage and resistance in the face of hardship. This divide is often framed as a West-versus-non-West opposition, but the study finds that, at least in the case of the current Gaza war, the more salient divide is between Arab and non-Arab countries. Contrary to the assumption that the global pro-Palestinian movement is primarily an expression of primal vengeance or antisemitism, slogans condemning or attacking Israel were relatively rare; militant support for Palestine was instead expressed predominantly through the language of heroism. By contrast, pro-Israel hashtag movements were centered on messages condemning and denouncing the "villain" (e.g., #HamasTerrorists), with heroic framing almost entirely absent—a notably distinct pattern. Professor Jeong explains that in conflicts marked by a significant power asymmetry, the weaker side tends to invoke the image of the "hero" to sustain hope, while the more powerful side tends to focus more on denouncing the adversary to justify its violent counterinsurgency campaigns. Professor Tay Jeong stated, "Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, long-standing themes concerning violence by colonized subjects—including the symmetry and asymmetry of political rhetoric, humanitarianism versus anti-imperialism, and the divide between the West and non-West—have been actively discussed, yet these concepts have lacked systematic theorization and empirical validation." He added, "I hope this study contributes, even modestly, to clearing up misunderstandings about the global pro-Palestinian movement." ▲ Role-composition of pro-Palestine hashtags published in political communication SKKU RESEARCH STORY Vengeance or Hope? A Role-Based Analysis of Hashtag Activism for the War in Gaza Access Paper: Political Communication (DOI) TJ Tay Jeong PURE Profile →
- No. 384
- 2026-07-20
- 594
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Development of the Ultrasensitive Biosensor for Detecting Early-Stage Liver Fibrosis Without Tissue Biopsy
A research team led by Professor Jinsung Park of the Department of Biomechatronic Engineering, working jointly with Professor Pil-Soo Sung of the College of Medicine at the Catholic University of Korea and Professor Si-Hyun Bae, President of Eunpyeong St. Mary's Hospital, has developed an ultrasensitive electrochemical biosensor capable of accurately detecting "early-stage liver fibrosis"—a condition in which the liver progressively hardens—using only a small amount of blood. The research represents a notable achievement in the convergence of engineering and medicine, opening a path to identifying liver abnormalities through blood analysis alone, without the pain of a tissue biopsy. The findings were published online on July 6 in the internationally renowned journal Chemical Engineering Journal. Liver fibrosis is a chronic liver condition in which liver tissue gradually hardens, much like a callus. If detected early, the condition can often be reversed through lifestyle changes or medication. However, because it produces no outward symptoms, early detection has been extremely difficult. Until now, diagnosis has relied mainly on liver biopsy—in which a needle is inserted directly into the liver to extract tissue—or costly imaging tests, both of which cause patient discomfort and are difficult to perform frequently. The research team focused on a protein called PICP, which is released into the bloodstream as the liver hardens. Because this protein is produced alongside the buildup of collagen ("scar tissue") in liver tissue, it serves as an important biomarker indicating how actively liver fibrosis is progressing. The diagnostic platform developed by the team, called FIB-EIS, consists of a carbon electrode coated with gold nanoparticles, onto which antibodies that bind to the PICP protein are attached. When PICP in the blood binds to these antibodies, it changes the electrical properties (impedance) of the sensor surface—a change that can be precisely measured. Because the method reads the target substance directly through electrical signals, without special staining or complex processing, the analysis is simple and could eventually be adapted into a portable, smartphone-like diagnostic device. Blood contains numerous other proteins that can interfere with diagnosis. To address this, the team applied a technique to block such interfering substances from adhering to the sensor. As a result, the biosensor achieved high sensitivity, accurately detecting biomarker concentrations as low as 0.81 pg/mL. In tests using blood samples from actual patients, the platform distinguished between healthy individuals and liver fibrosis patients with 95.24% sensitivity and 100% specificity (the probability of correctly identifying healthy individuals as healthy), demonstrating exceptionally strong diagnostic performance. "This research is significant in demonstrating that liver disease can be detected early through a simple blood test, without subjecting patients to the pain of a tissue biopsy," said Professor Jinsung Park of Sungkyunkwan University. "If this technology can be further developed into a compact diagnostic device usable even at local clinics, we hope it will help many people detect and manage liver disease before it progresses." This research was supported by various funding programs from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, including the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program, the Mid-Career Researcher Program, the Post-Doc Growth Program, the Sejong Science Fellowship, and the Physician-Scientist Training Program. ▲Physics-informed interfacial impedance sensing of PICP for precision detection of liver fibrosis in MASLD published in chemical engineering journal SKKU RESEARCH STORY Precision detection of early-stage liver fibrosis in MASLD via physics-informed interfacial impedance sensing of procollagen type I C-terminal peptide Access Paper: Chemical Engineering Journal (CEJ) (DOI) JP Jinsung park PURE Profile →
- No. 383
- 2026-07-14
- 709
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Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture Publishes Buddhist-Confucian Dialogue with a world-renowned press
Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (Director, Professor Doil Kim) has published Buddhist-Confucian Dialogue: A Contribution to the Comparative Philosophy of Religion through Springer Nature, one of the world's leading academic publishers. The volume offers a fresh examination of the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism, two of the most influential intellectual traditions in East Asia. Released as the seventh volume in Springer's renowned Comparative Philosophy of Religion series, the book was co-edited by Professor Doil Kim and Professor Leah Kalmanson of the University of North Texas. Bringing together leading scholars from Korea and abroad, the volume highlights the growing contribution of East Asian philosophy to international discussions in comparative philosophy and philosophy of religion. Contributors examine a wide range of topics, including life and death, emotion and morality, self-cultivation, political order, meditation, music, and humility. Through these studies, the volume illustrates how Confucian and Buddhist thinkers often engaged one another through critique, adaptation, and creative reinterpretation, thereby enriching both traditions. The book further suggests that these intellectual resources remain relevant for contemporary discussions of moral development, human flourishing, and the search for meaningful ways of life. Contributors include prominent researchers such as Steven Heine, Jea Sophia Oh and Albert Welter, together with distinguished Korean scholars including Professor Youngho Lee of Sungkyunkwan University and Professor Yongbin You of the University of Seoul, longtime collaborators of the Institute. Their participation reflects the Institute's growing role as an international hub for research on East Asian philosophy and religion. This publication represents the culmination of more than four years of sustained scholarly collaboration. Since 2021, the Institute has fostered a series of conversations on Confucian–Buddhist dialogue, with earlier research outcomes collected in the Korean volume Confucian-Buddhist Dialogue: Communication and Harmony between Buddhist and Confucian Thought (Janggyeonggak, 2024). The new Springer volume brings these discussions into a global scholarly forum, demonstrating how Korean humanities research is not merely participating in international academic conversations but helping to shape and advance them. Beyond its research achievements, the Institute has also emerged as a leading center for training the next generation of humanities scholars. Seven early-career researchers affiliated with the Institute's Center for the Contemporary Study of East Asian Classics and Critical Confucianism (CCECC) have secured faculty appointments at major Korean universities, including Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul National University, and Pusan National University. Professor Doil Kim has also continued to expand Sungkyunkwan University's global academic presence through his own research. In December 2025, he published The Art of Seeing Beyond Oneself: A Confucian Perspective on Humility with Oxford University Press, further contributing to international scholarship on Confucian ethics and comparative philosophy. ▲ Buddhist-Confucian Dialogue: A Contribution to the Comparative Philosophy of Religion book release SKKU RESEARCH STORY Buddhist-Confucian Dialogue : A Contribution to the Comparative Philosophy of Religion DK Doil Kim PURE Profile →
- No. 382
- 2026-07-09
- 916
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A light-color-programmed artificial synapse for brain-like balanced learning
The human brain actively keeps “learning” in balance, by holding on to what matters and letting go of what does not. Researchers in Korea have now reproduced this ability in a semiconductor device, using the color of light to strengthen (remember) or weaken (forget) an artificial synapse's memory. Remarkably, the key ingredient is a material 'defect' that engineers usually try to eliminate. The study appears in the journal Nature Communications in May 2026. Modern artificial intelligence is extraordinarily power-hungry. Training a single generative model can consume as much electricity as a small city. The brain, by contrast, outperforms supercomputers on far less energy than a light bulb, because it stores and processes information at the same place, the synapse. This has driven intense interest in neuromorphic (brain-inspired) computing, and especially in light-driven 'photonic synapses' that promise ultralow-power, high-speed operation. A long-standing obstacle, however, is that conventional artificial synapses use the same control knob for both 'remembering' (potentiation) and 'forgetting' (depression). This makes the learning balance collapse over time-weights either saturate (runaway) or fade away (quiescence), erasing what was learned. The brain avoids this through homeostatic plasticity, but artificial hardware has had to mimic it with costly extra software. The team led by Professor Sae Byeok Jo and Professor Wooseok Yang (Sungkyunkwan University) solved this by embracing a defect rather than removing it. In silver bismuth sulfide (AgBiS2), a next-generation light-absorbing semiconductor, a slight, controlled disorder in the ionic arrangement (so-called cation disorder) creates 'traps' that hold photo-generated electrons for a long time. This is a drawback for fast detectors, but it makes the material behave like a 'natural memory' that retains information even after the power is off. By precisely tuning this disorder and stacking a near-infrared-absorbing molecular layer on top, the researchers turned the color of incident light into a learning switch. Near-infrared light triggered 'accelerated learning,' boosting the synaptic connection more than 13-fold, while blue light drove 'accelerated forgetting,' rapidly weakening it. Using ultrafast laser spectroscopy that resolves events down to a quadrillionth of a second, the team directly confirmed that the two colors send electrons along opposite pathways-filling versus emptying the traps. In a handwritten-digit recognition simulation, the conventional neural networks using a single mechanism lost their memory within 200 training rounds, whereas the new wavelength-orthogonal scheme kept recognizing patterns stably over 1,000 rounds-demonstrating brain-like balanced learning at the hardware level. Professor Jo said, "Knowing how to forget is as important as knowing how to remember. The essence of this work is that we separated those two functions by the color of light, and revived what was considered a defect into a self-balancing learning function for AI hardware." The approach is not limited to one material, and all processing uses low-temperature, ink-based solution methods compatible with existing semiconductor lines. The researchers expect the technology to contribute to light-based neuromorphic computing, low-power AI accelerators, in-sensor computing, and machine-vision systems for autonomous vehicles and robots-as well as 'artificial eyes' (artificial retinas) that can see and remember. ▲ By the color of light, a single disorder-engineered synapse selectively strengthens or weakens its memory, enabling brain-like homeostatic learning. published in nature communicationsSKKU RESEARCH STORY Disorder-mediated Non-equilibrium Photocurrent Redistribution Enables Homeostatic Synaptic Conditioning in AgBiS2 Heterostructure Access Publication (DOI) SJ Saebyeok Jo PURE Profile → WY Wooseok Yang PURE Profile →
- No. 381
- 2026-06-18
- 2241
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Designable van der Waals Crystal Realizes Artificial Neuronal Cell Mimicking with Light
A research team led by Professor Taesung Kim of the School of Mechanical Engineering developed an optoelectronic synaptic device that mimics the functions of human neurons and synapses at the device scale. The researchers designed a designable van der Waals (vdW) crystal through a single-step sulfurization process using mixed plasma. The developed device operates under optical stimuli, offering a structural solution to configure semiconductor materials for brain-inspired computing. Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and hyper-connectivity require neuromorphic vision systems capable of sensing and processing vast amounts of visual data in real time. Optoelectronic synapses, which exhibit conductance variations in response to light signals, serve as core components of these systems. Layered vdW materials attracted significant attention as promising candidates due to their excellent optical properties and atomic-scale thickness. However, conventional vdW materials faced technical challenges, including the difficulty of precisely controlling grain boundaries and intercalation, polymer residue accumulation, mechanical warpage at interfaces, and poor large-area crystalline uniformity. To overcome these limitations, the research team focused on the structural similarity between light-sensitive ion channels in biological membranes and layered vdW lattices. The researchers applied an argon and hydrogen sulfide (Ar + H₂S) plasma sulfurization process to bulk van der Waals rhenium selenide (ReSe₂). This single-step process transformed the upper portion of the material into a nano-crystalline ReSe₂ layer composed of nano-sized grains, while preserving the underlying bulk single-crystalline ReSe₂ layer without damaging the interlayer interfaces. These two integrated layers structurally correspond to the light-sensitive ion channels of a neuronal cell membrane and the intracellular environment, respectively, and were fabricated without additional deposition or patterning steps. The research team utilized scanning probe microscopy (SPM) to resolve the pathways of S²⁻ (sulfur) ionic migration. The grain boundaries in the nano-crystalline ReSe₂ layer confined the sulfur ionic transport at the atomic scale, enabling deterministic control over synaptic weight updates, similar to the gating mechanism of biological ion channels. The device demonstrated key synaptic functionalities, including multi-level conductance modulation, long-term potentiation/depression (LTP/LTD), paired-pulse facilitation (PPF), and a tunable short-term to long-term memory (STM-LTM) transition. The nano-crystalline ReSe₂ device exhibited a 34.7% increase in retention efficiency during learning-forgetting-relearning cycles compared to bulk ReSe₂. In system-level evaluations, the device successfully performed edge detection on natural images and achieved a 96.24% classification accuracy on the CIFAR-10 image recognition task. This development offers a materials platform for next-generation neuromorphic semiconductors and AI hardware. "This study demonstrates a single-step method to design the structure of van der Waals crystals for optoelectronic synaptic devices that learn and store information using light," said Professor Taesung Kim, the corresponding author of the study. "By structurally resolving the random nature of ionic migration and interfacial issues inherent in conventional devices, this architecture can be applied to research on next-generation neuromorphic semiconductors and AI hardware." This research received financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Leader Research Program, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), and the Semiconductor-Track Graduate School Program funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE). The study was conducted as a collaborative effort among researchers from Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), the Center for Quantum Nanoscience at IBS, and the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM). The findings were published online in the international journal Advanced Materials (Impact Factor: 26.8, top 1% in JCR) on June 3, 2026. ▲ Structure and operational mechanism of the optoelectronic synaptic device based on the designable van der Waals crystal operating with light published in advanced materials SKKU RESEARCH STORY Designable van der Waals Crystal for Artificial Neuronal Cell Mimicking Access Publication (DOI) TK Taesung Kim PURE Profile →
- No. 380
- 2026-06-15
- 2894
