YANJUN LIU

Yanjun LIU
Biofunctionalized Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (BioNEMS) Laboratory
Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Pennsylvania State University
212 Earth-Engineering Sciences Building
University Park, PA 16802-6812
Tel: 814-8657302
E-mail: yul17@psu.edu

Liquid Crystal Photonics.
Tunable Photonic Crystals, Lasers, Microlenses, Sensors, etc.
Active plasmonics.

Jul 2004 - Feb 2007 (Ph.D) School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Sep 2000 - Jul 2003 (M.Sc) State Key Lab for Advanced Phontonic Materials and Devices, Dept. of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, China.
Sep 1996 - Jul 2000 (B.Eng) Dept. of Optoelectronic Information Engineering, Shandong University, China.

Nov 2007 - May 2008 Postdoctoral fellow in European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Italy.
Mar 2007 - Nov 2007 Research associate in School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Feb 2001 - Jul 2001 Teaching assistant of the course “Wave and Optics” in Dept. of Physics, Fudan University. Grading homework and exam papers.

Nov 2007 - May 2008 @LENS
“Light transport, diffusion and localization in disordered/ordered structures”
Study the anisotropic diffusion of light in disordered polymer/liquid crystal structures, random lasing properties in dye-doped Levy glass.
Jul 2004 - Nov 2007 @NTU
“Tunable Polymer/Liquid Crystal Composite Devices”
Focusing on the fabrication and characterization H-PDLC gratings, and applications of PDLC/H-PDLC including tunable lasers, tunable lenses, and tunable photonic crystals.
Oct 2002 - Jul 2004 @Fudan Univ.
“Spatial Light Modulator Based on LCOS”
Supported by the State “863” project in China. Designing the setup of optical system and characterizing the properties of amplitude and phase modulation of 1024×768 LCOS spatial light modulator.
Sep 2000 - Jul 2004 @Fudan Univ.
“Optical Switch Made of Holographic Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystal”
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation and Shanghai Development of Science and Technology Foundation in China. Designing and implementing of the optical setup, developing the H-PDLC material recipe, fabricating a 2 x 2 optical switch and measuring its parameters.

Nov 2007 - May 2008 ICTP TRIL Programme Fellowship in Italy
2007 2006 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad
2005 SID student travel grant award
2004 - 2007 Nanyang Technological Univ. Scholarship
2002 Fudan Univ. Scholarship
2000 Fudan Univ. Scholarship
2000 Excellent student of Shandong Univ.
1996 - 2000 Shandong Univ. Scholarship Second / Third Prizes four times

1. K. S. Xu, Y. J. Liu, and Z. J. Xing, “A method to control the cell gap of the liquid crystal devices,” CN03150767.0, 2003.

1. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, D. Luo, and Z. Raszewski, “Generating electrically tunable optical vortices by a liquid crystal cell with patterned electrode,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 101114 (2008).
2. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, Q. Wang, and D. Luo, “Electrically switchable optical vortex generated by a computer-generated hologram recorded in polymer-dispersed liquid crystals,” Opt. Express 15, 16645-16650 (2007). Also selected in The Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics 3(1), (2008).
3. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “Electrically switchable computer-generated hologram recorded in polymer-dispersed liquid crystals,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 191118 (2007).
4. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, H. I. Elim, and W. Ji, “Effect of liquid crystal concentration on the lasing properties of dye-doped holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal transmission gratings,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 011109 (2007).
5. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “Electrically tunable two-dimensional holographic photonic crystals fabricated by a single diffractive element,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 171101 (2006). Also selected in Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology 14(19), (2006).
6. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, H. I. Elim, and W. Ji, “Gain narrowing and random lasing from dye-doped polymer-dispersed liquid crystals with nanoscale liquid crystal droplets,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 011111 (2006).
7. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, P. Shum, and X. J. Yin, “Tunable fly’s-eye lens made of patterned polymer-dispersed liquid crystal,” Opt. Express 14, 5634-5640 (2006). Also selected in The Virtual Journal for Biomedical Optics 1(7), (2006).
8. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, P. Shum, H. P. Li, J. Mi, W. Ji, and X. H. Zhang, “Low-threshold and narrow-linewidth lasing from dye-doped holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal transmission gratings,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 061107 (2006).
9. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, J. H. Liu, H. T. Dai, and K. S. Xu, “A polarization insensitive 22 optical switch fabricated by liquid crystal-polymer composites,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 041115 (2005).
10. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, H. T. Dai, J. H. Liu, and K. S. Xu, “Effect of Surfactant on Electro-optical Properties of Holographic Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal Bragg Gratings,” Opt. Mater. 27, 1451-1455 (2005).

1. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, Q. Wang, and D. Luo, “Electrically switchable optical vortex generated by a computer-generated hologram recorded in polymer-dispersed liquid crystals,” (Invited paper) Photonics West 2008, San Jose, USA, Jan 19-24, 2008.
2. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “A switchable microlens array made of patterned polymer-dispersed liquid crystals,” ASID’07, Singapore, Aug 2-3, 2007.
3. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “Electrically tunable square-zone Fresnel lens made of polymer-separated composite film,” Asia Display’07, China, Mar 12-16, 2007.
4. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “A fly’s-eye lens fabricated using patterned polymer dispersed liquid crystal,” SID International Symposium Digest 37, 776-779 (2006).
5. Y. J. Liu and X. W. Sun, “Fabrication and Characterization of Holographic Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal Bragg Gratings,” NanoSingapore 2006: IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies - Nanoelectronics, Singapore, Jan 10-13, 2006.
6. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, and Q. Wang, “A Focus-switchable Lens made of Polymer-Liquid Crystal Composite,” 3rd International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies (ICMAT 2005), Singapore, Jul 3-8, 2005.
7. Y. J. Liu, X. W. Sun, H. T. Dai, and K. S. Xu, “Electro-optical characteristics of holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal Bragg gratings,” SID International Symposium Digest 36, 682-685 (2005).