Yi-Fan Zhao
Dr. Yi-Fan Zhao is a CEI Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow and a member of Xiaodong Xu’s lab in the Department of Physics at the University of Washington. His research is focused on integrating advanced two-dimensional materials that exhibit partial electronic charges into contemporary electronic technologies, aiming to develop a whole new branch of energy-efficient electronic devices as well as quantum computing capabilities “beyond Moore’s Law”, i.e. not limited by gradual improvements in conventional nanoscale fabrication of transistors on computer chips. As published in Nature in 2023, the Xu Group made the groundbreaking discovery of fractional electronic charges without an external magnetic field in devices made of...
Ang Li
Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering Ang Li (he/his) is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UW. He earned his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University, his M.A. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Princeton University. He directs the PN Computer Engineering Lab (PNCEL), which innovates from computing systems to semiconductor circuits and explores the interplay between classic and emerging computing technologies. In his doctoral research, Dr. Li has developed a silicon-proven, open-source, FPGA research and prototyping framework (PRGA) and studied tightly integrated, manycore-eFPGA, system-on-chip (SoC) architectures. He has been a leading member in two...
Ren S Pumulo
Department: Materials Science and Engineering Advisors: Xiaodong Xu and Arka Majumdar Photonic crystal cavities and other periodic dielectric devices enable unique light-matter phenomena when coupled with emitters. Developments in 2D Van der Waals materials, particularly transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and magnetic semiconductors such as Chromium Bromide Sulfide (CrSBr), have shown a large potential for diverse light-matter phenomena, such as exciton-polaritons, enhanced photoluminescence, and single photon emission. The research I will conduct as a 3rd year graduate student in Professors Xiaodong Xu and Arka Majumdar’s groups, will primarily involve coupling photonic devices with 2D materials to enhance lasing and nonlinearity, to obtain more efficient energy. These devices...
Reagan Beers
Department: Molecular Engineering Advisor: Jessica Ray I am a 3rd year Molecular Engineering Ph.D. student working in the Aquatic Innovation for Materials Science (AIMS) lab with Professor Jessica Ray. My current research focuses on vanadium carbide MXene electrode synthesis and characterization. In the future, I plan to integrate the electrode into an electrochemical water treatment system for persistent organic contaminants. With urbanization and adverse effects of climate change disturbing the water-energy nexus, developing scalable and effective water treatment systems is imperative to accelerating clean energy adoption. ...
Nick Adams
Department: Chemistry Advisor: Daniel Gamelin I am investigating the electrochemical, magnetic, and optical properties of 2D layered materials, including chromium thiophosphate (CrPS4). CrPS4 was originally investigated as a potential battery material but was subsequently found to possess interesting magnetic, optical, and semiconducting properties. Using light as an exploratory tool, I will deepen the field's fundamental understanding of this material, which is still limited. This research will open the door to a new family of tunable layered electronic materials with many uses such as improving battery technology. The magneto-optical properties of CrPS4 also make it a good candidate for atomically thin magnetic semiconductors in spintronic devices, which...
Renyu Zheng
Department: Chemical Engineering Advisor: Chun-long Chen Research: In my research, I use peptoid, a peptidomimetic sequence-defined polymer, as the building block for hierarchical assembly. The highly programmable peptoids allow precise control over the morphology of the assembled nanostructures into 1D, 2D, and 3D platforms and versatile conjugation of functional motifs like photo-active groups and electron transfer groups to create hybrid nanostructured materials in bio-inspired energy devices. ...
Jay Dua
Department: Materials Science & Engineering Advisor: Dr. James De Yoreo My proposed research addresses these challenges by using AFM-based nanolithography to create novel versatile nanopatterned organothiol SAMs on muscovite mica—an unexplored system offering significantly improved reproducibility, reusability, reliability, and cost affordability for templating the biosensing molecular assembly. I will focus on developing a protocol for creating these SAMs and analyzing their efficacy in anchoring protein-based bio-receptors....
Ruoyu Zhang
Department: Physics Advisor: Mark Rudner My current research is on theoretical studies of Floquet engineering, which utilize periodic drive to modify properties of matters and induce non-equilibrium phenomena that do not exist in equilibrium. Specifically, I focus on electronic and thermal transport in Floquet topological insulators as well as chiral plasmon oscillations in driven dirac materials....
Andrew Tang
Department: Electrical & Computer Engineering Advisor: Arka Majumdar My research focuses on integrated photonic systems that are predominantly on a silicon-on-insulator platform at the telecommunication wavelength. My main research directions are quantum simulations using coupled cavity arrays [CCA] and large-scale programmable integrated circuits [PIC]. My project on CCA’s will be an extension of my group’s previous research into simulating the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger [SSH] model with a 1D CCA. I aim to create a fully tunable, 2D CCA that will allow for simulation of 2D lattices such as graphene. My other aim is the creation of controllable PIC’s through the use of phase change materials such as SbSe....
Austin Wang
Department: Chemistry Advisor: Douglas Reed I'm a rising second year in the Chemistry department in the lab of Doug Reed doing research on 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). My research aims to impart porosity in these materials by linking individual sheets using organic molecules. Due to the large variety of TMDCs and their differing electronic properties, a facile and general method for creating porous TMDC structures could help in creating novel materials with unique electronic and magnetic properties....
Mai Nguyen
Department of Physics Faculty Advisor: Professor Xiaodong Xu The growing demand for faster and more efficient data processing and storage has driven the search for alternatives to traditional charge-based electronics. One promising option is spin wave, which is the collective disturbances of aligned spins in magnetic materials. These waves can transmit information with high fidelity over long distances without moving electric charge, significantly reducing energy loss due to heating and lowering power consumption in devices. My research focuses on observing and enhancing the so-called “nonlinear” in spin waves. By gaining precise control over these nonlinear interactions—similar to how we control diodes and transistors in traditional electronics—we...
Gianluca Rafael Delgado
Department: Physics Advisor: David Cobden Research Summary: The field of 2D materials has led to massive leaps forwards in our ability to study and control novel quantum phases in a variety of systems. So far much of the work in this field has focused on graphene based or semiconductor based structures but comparatively little work has been done on studying semi-metallic systems outside of graphene. My work as a 3rd year PhD student in the group of Prof. David Cobden will consist of using electronic transport to better understand the quantum phases of the 2D semi-metal tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) in the few-layer limit. Previous studies on WTe2...