Nano Science and Technology

Overview

It will provide students interdisciplinary research skills and

knowledge for a successful career in academic institutes and R&D industry in areas of advanced materials, nano-electronics, energy, microfluidics and biotechnology.

Research Foci

Research in the Department covers a broad range of topics, from the smallest to the largest scale. Faculty members work both independently and collaboratively and they are also linked to HKUST’s front-running William Mong Institute of Nano Science and Technology and the HKUST Institute for Advanced Study.

• Cold atoms, Optics and Quantum Information: Matter-matter and light-matter interactions at atomic and molecular levels, precise control of quantum systems at the level of single photons, atoms, and molecules. Studies of physics in this scale lead to the next revolution of quantum technologies. 

• Condensed matter experiments and advanced materials: To study the properties of matters and the emerging quantum materials, such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, topological matters, nanostructures, superconductors, and organic artificial structures with advanced experimental techniques.

• Condensed matter theory, statistical and computational physics: Understanding collections of particles using quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and electromagnetism lead to the prediction and manipulation of many novel materials including topological insulators, Dirac semimetals, Weyl semimetals, unconventional superconductors and two-dimensional materials.

• Particle physics and cosmology: Studies of elementary particles help explaining the observed cosmological structures and vice versa. To answer the most fundamental scientific questions, such as: What everything around us is made of and interact? What is the origin of our Universe and how does it evolve? These questions are deeply interconnected.

• Soft Matter and Biological physics: Colloids, polymers, complex fluids, granular materials and biological systems from the scale of biological molecules to whole organism. These mechanically soft systems have significant thermal effects. Understanding their behaviors in the mesoscopic scale is both challenging and technologically important.

• Metamaterials, Photonic and Phononic Crystals: Metamaterials and artificial crystals derive their properties from structures rather than the constitute materials, allowing us to explore optical and acoustic wave phenomena in ways not possible before, such as invisibility cloaking, negative refractive indices, non-Hermitian physics and nontrivial topological phases.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the PhD in Nano Science and Technology from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , graduates will be able to:

• Explain the principles in nano science and technologies (such as nano material process, nano material characterization, nano device design and fabrication, nano structural observation and manipulation) and apply to problems at the postgraduate level;
• Demonstrate a mastery of the concepts and literature of a specific sub-discipline of physics;
• Conduct a successful program of independent research; and
• Communicate scientific results effectively, both orally and in writing.