Research Scientist/Principal Investigator
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tian Gu is a Research Scientist at MIT, where he is the co-Investigator of the Photonic Materials Research Group. His primary research interests involve nano-/micro-optics, integrated photonics, and photonic materials, focusing on the areas of metasurface flat optics, optical phase change materials, photonic interconnection/packaging, on-chip spectroscopy, artificial intelligence, photovoltaics, flexible photonics, etc. He is the co-Founder of 2Pi and LyteChip, MIT spin-off companies developing advanced optics and photonics technologies. He received his B.S. degree from Beijing Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering, and Ph.D. degree from University of Delaware in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Tian publishes in journals including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics, Nature Communications, Nano Letters, Optica, Advanced Optical Materials, etc. He is a recipient of the SPIE Rising Researcher Award, R&D 100 Award, TechConnect National Innovation Award, among others. His work has been recognized in “Optics in 2021" by OSA, “Top 10 MIT research news of 2020”, and multiple best paper awards in technical conferences. He holds 15 patents.
Tian serves on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports. He is also an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Physics, Optics and Photonics. He is the lead Guest Editor of Optical Materials Express feature issue on "Hybrid Integrated Photonic Platforms" (2021) and Journal of Lightwave Technology special issue on "Optical Interconnects" (2020).
Tian has served on conference program committees for CLEO, IEEE Photonics Conference, IEEE Summer Topicals Meeting on Reconfigurable Optics and Photonics, Optical Interconnects Conference, SENSORS, International Congress on Glass, International Conference on Concentrator Photovoltaic Systems, etc.
SPIE Rising Researcher Award
R&D 100 Award
TechConnect National Innovation Award
Nanoelectronics, Electromagnetics, and Photonics Graduate Faculty Award, University of Delaware
Reconfigurable meta-optics enable dynamic tuning of optical functionalities and thus have opened up exciting opportunities for agile manipulation of light propagation and interaction with matter. In this Review, we discuss state of the art of reconfigurable metasurface technologies and their applications and highlight key research advances that are essential to enabling their transition from laboratory curiosity to commercial reality.
We present a parfocal flat zoom lens design using multi-functional optical metasurfaces which achieves large step zoom ratios (10x), minimal distortion and diffraction-limited optical quality without requiring mechanical moving parts. Two embodiments of the concept are experimentally demonstrated based on polarization-multiplexing in the visible and phase change materials in the mid-infrared.
Our team developed an on-chip electrically switched phase-change metasurface platform. The active metasurface achieved quasi-continuously tuneability with record half-octave spectral tuning range and large optical contrast of over 400%.
Nature Nanotechnology (2021) pdf
Tunable phase-change metasurfaces
We demonstrated a solid-state active flat lens with diffraction-limited imaging performance and high-contrast multi-depth imaging capability, leveraging a high performance phase change material (GSST) developed by our team.
Nature Communications, 12, 1225 (2021) pdf
MIT News:
New “metalens” shifts focus without tilting or moving
Also read:
Our work on ultra-wide field-of-view metasurface flat lens ranked among the Top 10 MIT Research News of 2020.
We developed a novel ultra-wide field-of-view (FOV), ultra-compact flat lens achieving a record aberration-free 180 degree FOV.
Nano Letters, 20, 7429–7437 (2020) pdf
MIT Homepage Spotlight:
We demonstrated the first mid-infrared (mid-IR) metalens for sub-wavelength diffraction-limited imaging.
Nature Communications, 9, 1481 (2018) pdf
Top 50 most read Nature Communications physics articles of 2018
MIT News:
The IEEE Summer Topicals Meeting Series serves as an international forum to facilitate information exchange between various technical communities using or affected by rapidly growing areas of technology or “Hot Topics” related to the general field of Photonics.
As the Topic Chair of Reconfigurable Optics and Photonics (ROP), I welcome your participation in this exciting meeting. Please find more information at:
https://www.ieee-sum.org/ and https://www.ieee-sum.org/program/topics/.
This feature issue in Optical Materials Express (OMEx) includes opinion, review and original research papers that highlight hybrid and heterogeneous photonic integration and interfacing approaches, as well as emerging solutions spanning the entire optical frequency range.
The feature issue has been published:
Hybrid Integrated Photonic Platforms: feature issue introduction
Copyright © 2023 Tian Gu - All Rights Reserved.