Scalable Chemical Sensitive Field-Effect Transistors (CS-FETs) for Early Warning and Mitigation of Lithium-Ion Battery Thermal Runaway
ABSTRACT
The rapid growth of electric mobility and energy storage is driving demand for trace gas sensing technologies capable of providing actionable early warning before catastrophic system failures occur. This talk introduces scalable Chemical Sensitive Field-Effect Transistors (CS-FETs), manufactured using conventional MEMS and CMOS processes, that combine selective sensing materials with field-effect transistor transduction to enable highly sensitive, low-power trace gas sensing.
The talk will discuss the motivation for CS-FET technology, its device architecture and operating principles, and how it compares with existing gas sensing approaches in terms of sensitivity, scalability, power consumption, and system integration. The primary focus will be the application of CS-FETs to lithium-ion battery safety, where trace hydrogen serves as one of the earliest indicators of impending thermal runaway. Experimental results from battery abuse testing will demonstrate the ability of CS-FET technology to provide early warning well before thermal runaway, enabling mitigation strategies that improve battery safety.
The talk will conclude by highlighting how the same CS-FET platform can be extended beyond battery monitoring to hydrogen infrastructure monitoring and natural hydrogen resource exploration, illustrating its potential as a scalable trace gas sensing technology for emerging energy applications
BIOGRAPHY
Hossain Fahad is the founding CEO of Serinus Labs, a company spun out of UC Berkeley developing breakthrough gas sensing technology for safety-critical applications. Prior to founding Serinus, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (BSAC), where he co-invented the company’s core sensor architecture.
He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from KAUST and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. His technical expertise spans sensors, semiconductor device physics, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Fahad has served as the Principal Investigator (PI) on multiple federal contracts/grants - including over $1.85M in SBIR awards from NASA and the NSF and currently serves as PI for the $2.54M ARPA-E H2SENSE program, titled ppb-HyPERS, focused on next-generation ultra-low power trace hydrogen sensor networks for leak detection and localization.