I am a Lead Researcher at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC), Abu Dhabi.
My work focuses on computational materials modeling and multiphysics simulation,
with emphasis on electromagnetic response, thermal transport, and their coupled behavior.
My research is built on first-principles and continuum modeling, with practical workflows that connect DFT-level insight to device-scale simulations (TMM, FDTD, CST, COMSOL), including electromagnetic–thermal-mechnical coupling when required.
I maintain an active academic collaboration with Khalifa University,
where my ongoing work in nanophotonics, 2D materials,
and density functional theory continues to shape my current modeling approach.
Recent Highlights
Presentation @ NTUT 19
Invited talk @ KU Seminar 18
Invited talk @ ESG 17
Presentation @ SolarPACES 17
Recent News
Nov 17–20, 2025: Keynote Speaker (Industrial Forum), “Accelerating Innovation in Advanced Materials” Summit, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2025: Technical Program Committee Member (SC2: Metamaterials, Plasmonics and Complex Media), PIERS 2025, Abu Dhabi, UAE
(Organization)
2019: Won the IEEE Nanotechnology Council NMDC Best Poster Award
"Density Functional Theory Simulation in Material Science," Invited Talk, Summer Lecture, National Taipei University of Technology, July, 2019
"Use of Density Functional Theory in the Design and Fabrication of Materials," Invited Talk, PhD Seminar, Khalifa University, December, 2018
"In Depth Wettability Nano Scale Investigation: Interesting Carbonate Case Study in Society of Petroleum Engineers," Invited Talk, ESG monthly meeting, December 2017
B. Alfakes, J. E. Villegas, H. Apostoleris, R. S. Devarapalli, S. R. Tamalampudi, J.-Y. Lu, J. Viegas, I. Almansouri, and M. Chiesa,
"Optoelectronic Tunability of Hf Doped ZnO for Photovoltaic Applications,"
Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 123, no. 24, pp. 15258-15266, May 2019
J.-Y. Lu, A. Raza, N. X. Fang, G. Chen, and T. J. Zhang,
"Optical Characterizations of Plasmonic Nanocomposites,"
The 8th Annual International Workshop on Advanced Materials, Feb. 21-23, 2016, Ras Al Khamiah, UAE
S. Noorulla, J.-Y. Lu, S. H. Nam, N. X. Fang, and T. J. Zhang,
"Plasmon-Enhanced Solar Absorbers,"
The 8th Annual International Workshop on Advanced Materials, Feb. 21-23, 2016, Ras Al Khamiah, UAE
J.-Y. Lu, and Y. H. Chang,
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The 14th International Conference on Modulated Semiconductor structures (MSS-14), 2011, Florida, USA
J.-Y. Lu, H. Y. Chou, J. C. Wu, S. Y. Wei, and Y. H. Chang,
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The 16th International Conference on Superlattices, Nanostructures and Nanodevices, 2010, Beijing, China
J.-Y. Lu and Y. H. Chang,
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The 9th International Conference on Physics of Light-Matter Coupling in Nanostructures, 2009, Leece, Italy
2D Materials Studies
An ultra-clean interface between graphene and the III-V substrate is required to maintain lattice match for the growth of the single-crystalline of MOCVD deposition, which
enables the substrate to be still “observable” from the top thin film deposition. Here, we propose combining bimodal AFM, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and DFT AFM to locally
probe surface energy properties on the graphene-coated substrate. In addition to providing quantitative insight into the surface interactions of complicated graphene coatings, this
work demonstrates a new route to nondestructively monitor the interface between graphene and coated substrates. The related work has been published in "Nanoscale," which could be accessed here.
The following figure shows that the surface energy of graphene coated substrate produced through exfoliation of natural graphite flakes and chemical vapor deposition are different.
Surface Wettability Studies
A general quantum mechanical approach to predict the macroscopic wettability of any solid crystal surfaces for different liquids directly through atomic-level density functional simulation. As a benchmark, the wetting characteristics of calcite crystal (10.4) under different types of fluids (water, hexane, and mercury), including either contact angle or spreading coefficient, are predicted and further validated with experimental measurements. This approach has been extended to liquid/liquid/solid multiphase systems, several physics quantities, such as the macroscopic contact angles, the work of adhesion at the solid-liquid interface, and the interfacial tension at the liquid-liquid interfaces, can be simultaneously predicted through density functional theory simulation. This opens a new avenue to probe the mechanism of sophisticated wetting phenomena in multiphase systems with direct quantum mechanical simulation. to provides insightful and quantitative predictions of complicated surface wettability alteration problems and wetting behaviors of liquid/liquid/solid triphase systems. The related work has been published in "Journal of Physical Chemistry Letter," which could be accessed here.
The following figure shows that an atomic methodology to directly predict macroscopic contact angle of liquid droplet on crystal substrates.
Interfacial Solar Vapor Generators
For solar steam generation application, the solar absorber coating needs to be integrated into devices for maximizing their efficiency, the structure design can be utilized with Multiphysics solar/thermal simulations. In this work, we analyze the structural designs and evaluate how much environmental energy can be exploited to enhance the performance of an interfacial solar vapor generation device, under various light intensities. This realization has direct implications in various important processes, particularly for wastewater treatment. The related work has been published in "Joule," which could be accessed here.
The following figure shows that Measured and simulated temperature distributions of the vapor generator under three different light intensities.
Plasmonic Nanocomposite Solar Absorbers
Finite difference time domain optical simulation method can provide a guide to design the nanohole and nanocomposite structures, which is potentially an absorptive coating for the high-performance solar absorber. In combination with optical simulation results, a class of scalable ultrathin silver/SiO2 nanocomposite films with self-formed topping plasmonic nanoparticles is designed and fabricated. We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate that just by controlling the high throughput co-sputtering process, the nanocomposite absorbers can achieve near 100% light absorption in the wavelength ranges from 300 to 800 nm. The related work has been published in "Advanced Optical Materials," which could be accessed here.
The following figure shows that Nanocomposites, consisting of metallic nanoparticles embedding in a dielectric host, can significantly enhance light-matter interactions in solar energy conversion and optical applications.
Plasmon Enhanced Nanoporous Absorbers
Ultrathin semiconductor films have attracted much attention due to their strong interference persisting inside the lossy dielectric film on a reflective substrate. We proposed a plasmon-enhanced ultrathin film broadband absorber by combining the ultrathin film absorber with localized surface plasmon resonances. This concept can be realized by patterning nanoholes on an absorber comprised of an absorptive ultrathin Ge film and a reflective Au layer, where the localized surface plasmon mode is activated by metallic pore-shaped holes. The related work has been published in "Advanced Optical Materials," which could be accessed here. The proposed plasmonic broadband ultrathin film absorber can be applied in many applications, such as solar vapor generation,photovoltaics, and solar water splitting.
The following figure shows that a plasmon-enhanced ultrathin film broadband absorber is proposed by combining the ultrathin lossy film absorber with localized surface plasmon resonances, which are activated by pore-shape plasmon resonances.
Computational Electromagnetics
Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) Method
The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method was introduced by Kane Yee in 1966 [1]. In its core form, FDTD directly solves Maxwell’s curl equations in the time domain by discretizing both space and time using central finite differences on the well-known Yee grid. Because it is time-domain based, a single simulation can naturally capture broadband responses, transient field evolution, and near-to-far interactions once the electromagnetic fields are properly recorded and post-processed.
FDTD became widely adopted in the 1990s with the practical development of the perfectly matched layer (PML), which provides an effective way to truncate an open computational region while minimizing artificial reflections at the boundaries. With modern computational resources (multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and cluster environments), FDTD has matured into a robust and widely used tool for electromagnetic and optical device analysis and design across both academic and industrial workflows. A comprehensive reference is the textbook by Taflove and Hagness [2].
What this example demonstrates
Below I provide a two-dimensional TE FDTD implementation that includes:
Yee-grid time stepping for TE polarization in 2D
Total-field / scattered-field (TF/SF) formulation to inject an incident wave while separating scattered fields
PML absorbing boundaries to approximate an open domain
The demonstration problem is electromagnetic scattering from a core–shell nanocylinder. The relative permittivities of the shell and core are set to 4 and 1, respectively. The simulation domain is divided into a total-field region, a scattered-field region, and surrounding PML layers (as illustrated in the figure/video). The animation visualizes the time evolution of the field (Ey) and provides an intuitive view of how the incident wave interacts with the core–shell structure and generates scattered waves.
Why time-domain? In frequency-domain solvers you typically solve one frequency per run; in FDTD, a broadband pulse can reveal a wide spectral response from a single transient simulation.
Why TF/SF? TF/SF allows clean separation between incident and scattered fields, which is particularly useful for scattering and extinction calculations.
Why PML matters? Boundary reflections can contaminate scattering signatures; a properly configured PML reduces this artifact and improves the reliability of near- and far-field observables.
Kane Yee (1966). “Numerical solution of initial boundary value problems involving Maxwell's equations in isotropic media”.
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 14(3), 302–307.
Allen Taflove and Susan C. Hagness (2005).
Computational Electrodynamics: The Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, 3rd ed.
Artech House Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58053-832-9.
Plasmonic Metal Nanoparticles
Over the last two decades, plasmon resonances in metallic nanoparticles have been studied extensively because metallic nanostructures can strongly absorb and scatter light through localized surface plasmon resonances. This behavior underpins a broad range of applications, including optical sensing, photothermal heating and solar vapor generation, and bio-imaging.
Here I provide a 2D-TE FDTD code to compute extinction, scattering, and absorption efficiencies for a gold-shell dielectric-core nanocylinder (schematically shown in the figure). The Fortran implementation can be accessed
here.
Analytical benchmark for verification
For 2D scattering problems with cylindrical symmetry, it is valuable to have an analytical solution as a reference for verifying numerical results. For this reason, I also provide an analytical code to calculate the extinction spectrum of a core–shell nanocylinder. As an example, results for a gold-shell dielectric-core nanocylinder with outer radius 50 nm and inner radius 40 nm are compared against the corresponding FDTD simulations in the figure below. The analytical implementation can be accessed
here.
Why this comparison is useful: matching peak positions and spectral trends provides a practical sanity check on discretization, TF/SF injection, and boundary absorption settings.
What can differ: small deviations may arise from finite grid resolution, numerical dispersion, PML configuration, and the time-window / Fourier-transform settings used to extract spectra from transient fields.
Application of the Spectral Density Function to Composite Materials
According to Bergman’s spectral representation, the effective response of a two-component composite can be expressed through an integral representation involving a spectral density function g(x). The key idea is that g(x) encodes geometric and topological information of the composite microstructure (e.g., connectivity, percolation features) and is, in principle, independent of the optical constants of the constituent materials. Connecting g(x) to effective optical constants therefore provides a route to interpret how isolated inclusions and percolated networks contribute to the macroscopic electromagnetic response of nanocomposites.
In practical terms, this framework can help bridge microstructural morphology (particle distribution and connectivity) to measurable effective properties, and can complement numerical simulations (e.g., FDTD/TMM) by offering a compact representation of geometry-driven contributions.
Update: 12/04/2022
THANK YOU ALL!
My beloved family
Thank you for all the supports during my postdoc career:
Prof. TieJun Zhang, Khalifa University
Prof. Daniel Choi, Khalifa University
Prof. Matteo Chiesa, Khalifa University
Prof. Ibraheem Almansouri, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company
Prof. Nicholas Xuanlai Fang, MIT
Prof. Gang Chen, MIT
Prof. Thomas C.-K, Yang, National Taipei University of Technology
Prof. Weilin Yang, Jiangnan University
Dr. Aikifa Raza, Khalifa University
Dr. Hongxia Li, Khalifa University
Dr. Srinivasa Reddy Tamalampudi, Khalifa University
Dr. Nitul S Rajput, Khalifa University
Dr. Shih-Wen Chen, National Taipei University of Technology
Mr. Boulos Fakes, Khalifa University
Mr. Abdulrahman Al-Hagri, Khalifa University
Ms Chia-Yun Lai, Khalifa University
Ms Mariam Ali Almahri, Khalifa University
Mr. Harry Apostoleris, Khalifa University
Mr. Yu-Cheng Chiou, UiT
Mr. Cheng-Hsiang Chiu, UiT
Ms Shabnam Ranny, Aspen Heights School
Thank you for the supports during my PhD:
Prof. Yuan-Huei Chang, my PhD advisor
Prof. Chi-Te Liang, Nationa Taiwan University
Prof. Yang-Fang Chen, National Taiwan University
Prof. Kuo-PIn Chiu, CYCU
Prof. Chih-Ming Wang, NCU
Prof. Din-Pin Tsai, Academia Sinica
Prof. Wei Chih Liu, NTNU
Dr. Husan-Yi Chao, SCIENTEK
Dr. Hung-Ji Huang, Instrument Technology Research Center
Dr. Ryan Cheng, senior member at my lab
Thank you for the supports during my career at TSMC: