MS - Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA [link]
2018
Graduate Certificate Program in Nanoscience - Duke University, Durham, NC, USA [link]
2006 - 2010
BS - Electrical and Engineering and Computer Science Honors Program, National Chiao Tung University,
Hsinchu, Taiwan [link]
Fall 2009
Exchange Student Program - Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,
IL, USA [link]
2003 - 2006
Advanced Math and Science Class - National Experimental High School, Hsinchu, Taiwan [link]
Teaching Experience
Summer 2015
Tutor - Duke Summer College/Summer Academy for High School Students, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
[link]
Spring 2015
Grader - PHY363 - Thermal Physics, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA [link]
Spring 2014
Lab Instructor - PHY142L - General Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism (For Other Majors), Duke
University, Durham, NC, USA [link]
Fall 2013
Lab Instructor - PHY152L - Introductory Electricity, Magnetism and Optics (For Engineers), Duke
University, Durham, NC, USA [link]
2008 - 2009
Voluntary Tutor - Mr. Stan Shih's Social Service Scholarship, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu,
Taiwan [link in Traditional Chinese] (the scholarship may no longer exist.)
In my junior year in NCTU, I was awarded by Mr. Stan Shih's Social Service Scholarship, and served as a
voluntary after-class tutor to help children in remote areas or in disadvantaged groups with English, math,
science, and computer skills for about 320 hours in a year.
My Journeys
Career as a Physicist
From August 2013 to September 2018, I did my PhD study in experimental condensed matter physics at Duke University in
Prof. Gleb Finkelstein's Group. In my first two years as an
infant physicist, I had worked on the fabrication and the measurement of various materials and devices, such as
chrominm tunnel junctions, silicon germanium nanowires, carbon nanotubes, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) -grown
graphene. I also helped assemble a Leiden dilution refrigerator and built some electronic instruments for quantum
transport measurement such as current amplifiers and an 8-channel digital-to-analog converter. These experience helped
me grow maturity as an experimental quantum phycisit.
Thanks to the new discovery of supercurrents flowing along the quantum Hall edges in a ballistic graphene Josephson
junction done by my colleagues, Dr. François Amet and Dr. Chung-Ting Ke et al., published in Science in
2016 [ link ], I was
furtunate to enter this new and exciting field and continue investigating the interplay of quantum Hall effect and
superconductivity by designing and conducting several experiments that are important steps toward the future
realization of fault-tolerant topological qubits with quantum Hall/superconductor hybrid devices. These experiments
lead to my dissertation.
Since September 2018, I have been a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. James Williams' Group at Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland, College Park.
My recent research focuses on the Josephson effects in tin telluride (SnTe) nanowires. I discovered an unusual
symmetry breaking Josephson effect, which can be attributed to the frustration between the two-band Josephson
couplings and the interband Umklapp scattering induced by the ferroelectric distortion in SnTe. Meanwhile, I am also
developing the shot noise and cross-correlation noise measurement techniques at about 1GHz to probe the quasiparticle
statistics in topological materials and superconducting devices. The story continues...
Undergraduate Studies
I attended the Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science Undergraduate Honors Program (EECSHP) at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Hsinchu,
Taiwan, in 2006. This multidisciplinary program gave me much flexibility in taking both engineering and physics
courses. My favorite undergraduate courses were electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, solid state physics and
photonics. In fact, I used to consider a research career in quantum optics to study light-matter interactions. I
also did my undergraduate research on the simulation of surface plasmon excitations in a planar structure in Prof. Chung-Hao Tien's group.
In Fall 2009, I travelled to the University of Illinoise at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as an exchange student, where
I did the independent study on optical metamaterials under the advise of Prof. Shun-Lien Chuang and also interacted
with a physicist Prof. James Eckstein when I took his Classical electromagnetism course. This short but invaluable
experience in UIUC inspired me to pursue a research career in the US.
Industry Experience
At the close of my undergraduate career, thanks to Prof. Tien's recommendation, I worked as an intern at AU Optronics (AUO) for two months in Summer 2010. There,
I fabricated and measured several Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) devices doped with gold nanoparticles to
plasmonically enhance the quantum efficiency of the OLED display. Although two months of the internship were not
enough for me to implement this into a real product, I achieved some luminescence improvements and gained my first
experimental research experience in an industry setting.
After finishing the internship, I served the mandatory military service in Taiwan for 11 months. In 2012, I worked
as an engineer in Qualcomm MEMS Technology, which was focusing on developing and commercializing a new type of
displays, Interferometric modulator
display (IMOD), also called Mirasol display, based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This reflective
display does not require any backlight, which is excellent for e-readers and smartwatches. My duty was to test and
troubleshoot the failed controller boards of Mirasol displays, manage and maintain the electronic instruments. I
also designed the schematics of a testing board with OrCAD Capture and FPGA for a new generation of Mirasol display.
It was a great experience for me to support other senior R&D engineers in the team and learn useful techniques from
them.
Transition to a Physicist career
After the working experience in the industry, I decided to pursue a scientific career in condensed matter physics
in order to broaden and deepen my understanding of the physical world and ultimately engage myself in the future
development of electronic devices and computing hardware. To get started my physicist career before my graduate
study, I did voluntary research work in 2013 in Prof. Chon-Saar Chu's
group at the Department of Electrophysics, National Chiao Tung University, focusing on analytically verifying
the existence of the vacuum induced Berry phase under the rotating wave approximation in the Jaynes-Cummings model.
