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NewsAwardsOpenings

  • One full time Postdoc position available now on high vacuum scanning thermal microscopy (with our brand new RHK Beetle HV SPM)!
  • One PhD position available for Fall 2024 on electrically tunable near-field thermophotonics! ($32k/year stipend + tuition + benefit)
  • One PhD position available for Fall 2024 on AFM based near-field thermal measurement! ($32k/year stipend + tuition + benefit)
  • Multiple UG/MS research positions available for Spring 2024 (volunteer) and Summer/Fall 2024 (possible FURI/MORE support)
  • We also would like to work with outstanding students who are citizens and PRs to develop competitive proposals for graduate fellowship programs to NSF, DoD, DoE, and NASA to pursue PhD degree and conduct research of mutual interests with us!

We are an interdisciplinary research team devoted to renewable energy sources—in particular, solar energy. By engineering materials at micro/nanoscale dimensions comparable or smaller than the wavelength of light, we aim to employ the physics that we understand to improve the conversion efficiency for solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermophotovoltaic energy-harvesting applications.

We primarily investigate the resonance behaviors that a nano-engineered material (or meta-materials) responses to the external electromagnetic waves at visible, near-infrared and mid-infrared regime. By utilizing these resonance phenomena such as wave interference, surface plasmon polariton and magnetic polariton, spectral and/or directional control of thermal radiation can be realized to construct efficient selective emitter/absorbers, which is beneficial to enhance the performance in solar-thermal and thermophotovoltaic energy systems. Plasmonics can be also used to scatter or trap more light in Si thin-film or nanowire solar cells, which could lead to higher electricity generation.

Besides exploring 3-D complex meta-materials for selective control of thermal emission/absorption, another main research focus in our group is understanding near-field radiative heat transfer between meta-materials with nanometer distances, which will result in not only high heat transfer rate exceeding blackbody limit but also higher conversion efficiency with spectral control of near-field thermal radiation.

We are greatly grateful to our funding sponsors:

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