(2cr) Innovating Light-Matter Coupling at the Nanoscale Interfaces

The advances in optics and photonics are of significant importance to many applications in chemical engineering, including chemical and biological analysis, materials synthesis and characterizations, optical sensing and imaging, photocatalysis, and nanomanufacturing. During my doctoral studies at UT Austin, I invented novel optical nanomanipulation tools to extend the capabilities of the Nobel-winning optical tweezers. These techniques can overcome photo-induced damages in conventional optical tweezers for biomolecular trapping and enable the optical manipulation of colloids at solid surfaces. In addition, I have developed a versatile optical platform for optical sensing of biomolecules, light-directed assembly of soft matter, nanoscale optical actuators, and tunable optical coupling in functional nanomaterials. Overall, my doctoral research highlighted the potential for optical manipulation, analysis, and characterizations in colloidal sciences, biology, photochemical processes, and nanotechnology.

During my postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley, I continued investigating fundamental properties and mechanisms in low-dimensional materials. I developed an ultrafast near-field nanoscopy to probe the non-equilibrium processes, such as photoexcited carrier dynamics, phase transformations, and photocatalysis in semiconductor nanomaterials. Such innovative technology brings new possibilities for the analysis of frontier chemicals and nanomaterials with high resolution in both time and length scales.

Selected Publications

1. J. Li et al. Ultrafast optical nanoscopy of carrier dynamics in silicon nanowires. Nano Letters 2023 23, 1445–1450. (Featured by Berkeley Engineering; Phys.org; etc.)

2. J. Li et al. Opto-Refrigerative Tweezers. Science Advances 2021, 7, eabh1101. (Featured by UT News; Eurekalert!; Phys.org; Physics World; etc.)

3. J. Li et al. Optical Nanomanipulation on Solid Substrates via Optothermally-gated Photon Nudging. Nature Communications 2019, 10, 5672. (Featured as Top 50 Physics Articles in 2019)

4. J. Li et al. Tunable Strong Coupling in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Nanowires. Advanced Materials 2022, 34, 2200656. (Featured as Cover)

5. J. Li et al. Opto-Thermocapillary Nanomotors on Solid Substrates. ACS Nano 2022, 16, 8820-8826. (Featured by UT News; EurekAlert!; OSA OPN; Phys.org; etc.)

6. J. Li et al. Tunable Chiral Optics in All-Solid-Phase Reconfigurable Dielectric Nanostructures. Nano Letters 2021, 21, 973–979. (Featured as Front Cover)

7. J. Li et al. Optical Nanoprinting of Colloidal Particles and Functional Structures. ACS Nano 2019, 13, 3783-3795.

Research Interests

My future research will focus on innovating light-matter coupling at the nanoscale interfaces by leveraging nanophotonics with the fundamentals of chemical engineering for applications in optoelectronics, biomedical engineering, robotics, environmental remediation, and nanomanufacturing to help mitigate global challenges in human health, energy, sustainability, and information technology.

Teaching Interests

I am interested in teaching many chemical engineering courses, including thermodynamics, heat transfer, and mass transfer, etc. I am also motivated to teach or develop other courses in nanoengineering, nanophotonics, solid-state physics, and phase transformations.