Professor Scherer's group works on microfabrication of integrated microsystems. Recently, his group was focused on developing sensors and medical diagnostic tools by using wafer-scale fabrication methods such as lithography and patterning.

In the past, Professor Scherer pioneered vertical cavity lasers and photonic crystals, microfluidic integrated chips and molecular diagnostic tools. His group also developed and commercialized silicon photonics. More recently, his group developed surface plasmon assisted light emitters, and perfected the fabrication of ultra-small structures by electron beam lithography.

Presently, his group works on the development of new lithography approaches for the fabrication of nanoscale vacuum electronic tunneling diodes and triodes.