Evan LernerLiang Feng Receives 2019 NSF CAREER Award
Liang Feng, Assistant Professor in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Electrical and Systems Engineering, has been selected to receive a 2019 NSF CAREER Award. This award is the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
Feng’s award will fund research on “Topological Engineering for Active Photonic Structures and Devices” and aims to advance the field of photonic computing and communications systems. Using photons instead of electrons in such systems could be much faster, but requires a new library of material and hardware components that can manipulate various properties of light and route it from one component to another. Feng’s research on how photons behave differently when confined to the interface of topological photonic domains will enable the design and construction of such devices.
Feng is also leading one of the eight research teams that were recently awarded an NSF “RAISE-EQuIP” grant. That grant program is designed to propel advances in quantum information science, which aims to harness the inherent quantum-mechanical properties of light and matter for new technologies. He is also a recipient of a 2016 Army Research Office Young Investigator Award.