Zhuo Li

ABOUT

Mr. Zhuo Li is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Nano Energy Lab, at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Before joining CMU, he received the bachelor's degree in Physics (2019) form University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He also received the Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering (2021) from CMU on the way of persuing the Ph.D. degree. Zhuo has a board research interest in the optical and photonic disciplines, including optical active particle/surfaces, metasurfaces, thermal plasmonics, and infrared emission/detection in the nanoscale. His research extensively involves a variety of numerical techniques, including the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and finite element method (FEM). Zhuo is also served as reviewers for multiple peer-review jounrals, including Jounal of applied physics, Applied physics letters, and Physical Review series.

NEWS

November, 2023

Our research about micro-scale spatial control of thermal signatures won the Best Poster Award in the ASME Society-Wide Micro and Nano Technology Forum in Nov. 2023. Zhuo would like to thank the fantastic contributions from all collaborators to this exciting project!

RECENT PROJECTS

Microscopic thermal signature control by metamaterial

Thermal signature refers to the appearance of a thermal source to an infrared (IR) detector. The spectral control of thermal signatures, namely to limit the spectrum of thermal radiations, has been well studied for multiple energy applications, including radiative cooling and thermal photovoltaic. The spatial control of thermal signatures, however, patterns thermal radiation from thermal sources in a way that is quite different from their visible appearances, and thus may have wide applications in encryption, optical security, and infrared surveillance. Previous works devoted to the spatial thermal signature control have explored the possibility of using graphene, and phase-change materials to achieve that. We are currently working on developing metamaterials working in the mid-infrared range that are aimed to provide high-resolution, systemic strategies to achieve digitized thermal signature control.

Ultra-compact Metasurfaces

Metasurfaces are arrays of optical-active plasmonic structures (left). They alter the wavefront of light by introducing phase shift during the light-metasurface interactions. Previous simulation studies of metasurfaces focus more on infinite arrays by applying periodic boundary conditions. In our work, we instead, studied the finite-sized metasurfaces (middle) and found that they are able to achieve the majority of the desired performance compared to infinite ones, despite their tiny overall sizes. Specifically, we benchmarked the reflective spectra (right) of metasurfaces with different array sizes and managed to achieve the theoretical performance (black curve) by only a 7 by 7 array (purple curve). This work fills the gap between the previous theoretical works about ideal infinite metasurfaces and real applications, where ultra-compact footprints and fast response speeds are of equal importance as optical performances.

Publications

1. Zhuo Li, L. Wang, X. Liu, J. Li, H.S. Yun, Z. Wang, X. Zhang, T.S. Wong, S. Shen. Leafhopper-inspired pixel twins for thermal signature control. Under review in Science Advances.
2. L. Wang, Zhuo Li, S. Shen, T.S. Wong. Geometric Design of Antireflective Leafhopper Brochosomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), in revision.
3. H. Salihoglu, J. Shi, Zhuo Li, Z. Wang, X. Luo, I.V. Bondarev, S.A. Biehs, S. Shen. Nonlocal near-field radiative heat transfer by transdimensional plasmonics. Physical Review Letters, 131, 086901, 2023. [Read]
4. J. Lin, Zhuo Li (co-first author), H. Salihoglu, X. Liu, S. Shen. Flexibly tuning near-field radiation by nano-thermal rectifiers, Material Today Physics, 29, 100921, 2022. [Read]
5. H. Salihoglu, Zhuo Li, S. Shen. Theory of thermal radiation from a nanoparticle array, Applied Physics Letters, 121(24), 241701, 2022. [Read]
6. J. Li, Zhuo Li (co-first author), X. Liu, S. Maslovski, S. Shen. Active control of thermal emission by graphene-nanowire coupled plasmonic metasurfaces. Physcial Review B, 106, 115416, 2022. [Read]
7. X. Liu, Zhuo Li (co-first author), Z. Wang, H. S. Yun, S. Shen. Design and analysis of electrothermal metasurfaces, Frontier in Energy, 2022. [Read]
8. Zhuo Li, J. Li, X. Liu, H. Salihoglu, S. Shen, Wiener chaos expansion method for thermal radiation from inhomogeneous structures, Physical Review B, 104 (19), 195426, 2021. [Read]
9. J. Li, J. Wuenschell, Zhuo Li, S. Bera, K. Liu, R. Tang, H. Du, P. R .Ohodnicki, S. Shen, Fiber Coupled Near‐Field Thermoplasmonic Emission from Gold Nanorods at 1100 K, Small, 17 (17), 2007274, 2021. [Read]
10. J. Li, Zhuo Li, and S. Shen, Degenerate quasi-normal mode theory for near-field radiation between plasmonic structures, Optics Express 28, 34123-34136, 2020. [Read]
11. Conference talk: 'From leafhopper to infrared encryption' International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. New Orleans, LA, Oct. 30 - Nov. 3, 2023.
12. Conference talk: 'Active Control of Thermal Emission by Graphene-Nanowire Coupled Plasmonic Metasurfaces' International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. Columbus, OH, Oct. 30 - Nov. 3, 2022.
13. Conference Talk: 'Thermal Radiation Spectra of Nanoplasmonic Structures: Simulation, Theory and Application' 21st symposium on thermophyscial properties. Boulder, CO, Jun 2021.

Educations