Two distinguished scholars at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) – Professor Jensen Li Tsan-hang and Assistant Professor Dr. Berthold Jäck, both from the Department of Physics, were recently awarded the prestigious 2022 Croucher Senior Research Fellowships, and the Croucher Tak Wah Mak Innovation Awards 2022 by The Croucher Foundation.
Prof. Li’s research revolves around various extraordinary optical phenomena given by metamaterials, with prominent examples such as invisibility cloaking and super-resolution imaging. His current interests are in transformation optics, metasurfaces, non-Hermitian optics and complex media. Metamaterials promise to provide exotic material properties based on tailor-made resonating micro-structures to provide material parameters that do not exist in conventional approaches. With the Croucher Senior Research Fellowship, he will explore new dimensions in constructing and applying metamaterials using non-Hermiticity from material gain and loss, time-varying capability of material parameters, currently known as time-varying metamaterials and applications of metamaterials in the quantum optical regime. These metamaterials can be applied to create very sensitive sensors, to achieve non-reciprocal signal communications and to develop new techniques in quantum imaging. (Please click here for Prof. Li’s biography)
Dr Jäck’s research focuses on the fabrication and characterization of novel quantum materials that could facilitate energy-efficient electronic devices and new types of quantum computers. Placed at the interface of condensed matter physics and material science, his research aims to augment the microscopic interactions between charge carriers and magnetic moments through judicious materials design resulting in novel quantum phenomena. To this end, Dr Jäck combines thin film material growth using molecular beam epitaxy with the microscopic and macroscopic material characterization using scanning tunnelling microscopy and electrical transport measurements, respectively. Developing novel microscopy methods to study charge carrier dynamics with high spatial and temporal resolution, Dr Jäck’s ultimate research goal is exploring new frontiers in quantum materials research. (Please click here for Dr Berthold Jäck’s biography)
Apart from Prof. Li and Dr. Jäck, The Croucher Foundation has also awarded Croucher Tak Wah Mak Innovation Awards 2022 and Croucher Senior Research Fellowships 2022 and 2023 to seven other distinguished scholars from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), for their outstanding scientific research achievements. Click here for more information on the awards.
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (https://hkust.edu.hk/) is a world-class research intensive university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. Over 80% of our research work were rated “Internationally excellent” or “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. We were ranked 3rd in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2022, and our graduates were ranked 30th worldwide and among the best from universities from Asia in Global Employability University Ranking and Survey 2022. As of 2022, HKUST members have founded 1,645 active start-ups, including 9 Unicorns and 7 IPO companies, generating economic impact worth over HK$400 billion. InvestHK cited QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 to demonstrate the performance of five world’s top 100 local universities in several innovation-centric areas, among which HKUST ranked top in four engineering and materials science subjects.
