About
Tian Gu, Ph.D.
Research Scientist/Principal Investigator
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary
Tian Gu is a Principal Investigator and Research Scientist at MIT. 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. He has been named a Top Scholar by ScholarGPS, ranking in the top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide. 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 Guest Editor of Nanophotonics special issue on "Programmable Nanophotonics" (2023), 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.
Awards and Honors
SPIE Rising Researcher Award
R&D 100 Award
TechConnect National Innovation Award
Nanoelectronics, Electromagnetics, and Photonics Graduate Faculty Award
Top Scholar by ScholarGPS (top 0.5% worldwide)
Highlights
Reconfigurable metasurfaces towards commercial success
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.
Multifunctional, reconfigurable parfocal zoom metalens
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.
Electrically-tuned active metasurfaces
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
Reconfigurable meta-optics
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:
Top MIT research stories of 2020
Our work on ultra-wide field-of-view metasurface flat lens ranked among the Top 10 MIT Research News of 2020.
Ultra-wide field-of-view metasurface flat optics
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:
Ultra-thin mid-infrared meta-optics
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:
