September 1 2026
Dr. Li is pointed as Next Generation Board Member of the Journal PhotoAggregate.
PhotoAggregate is a new Journal published by WILEY.
Broad scope covering chemistry, materials science, life science, physics, and engineering;
Focusing on optoelectronic, photonic, and other photo-related properties, mechanisms, functions, and applications of aggregates;
Open for submissions since August 2026.
2025
August 17 2025 Dr. Li was invited as a section president in Division of Colloidal and Surface Chemistry in ACS Fall 2025 meeting, DC.
August 14 2025 Our first paper was published in Journal of Materials Chemistry in the Emerging Investigator Collection.
January 25 2025 Dr. Li was Invited to give a talk in Photonics West, Moscone Center in San Francisco.
2024
August 5 2024 Dr. Li joined the Department of Chemistry and Bichemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park as an assistant professor.
2023
Nov 26 2023 Dr. Li is invited to serve as a session co-chair in Symposium SF02: Crystallization and Assembly at Interfaces—Fundamental Breakthroughs Enabled by Data-Centric Analysis and In Situ/Operando Techniques. Looking forward to exciting research from our materials research society.
Oct 14 2023 Dr. Li was recently appointed to join the Nanoscale Horizons Community board. I am ready to engage with other scientists and to contribute to the scientific publications for our research community!
Sep 19 2023 Dr. Li joined the Computational Image Analysis Club at Northwestern University, which aims to help biological and chemical researchers apply computational methods to interpret imaging data and design molecular imaging techniques.
Jun 29 2023 The research article "A magnetic assembly approach to chiral superstructures" was online in the journal Science. Please read the UCR news release "Chemists develop new method to create chiral structures" for brief introduction.
News release: Magnetically directing chiral assembly/AAAS
Innovative Applications For Sensing And Anti-Counterfeit Technologies/VERVE TIMES
A New Way of Establishing Chiral Structures/AZO MATERIALS
Chemists develop new chiral structure creation method/TECH EXPLORIST
化学者がキラル構造を作る新しい方法を開発/Tii技術情報
Applications in sensing and anti-counterfeiting technology/ASKBYGEEKS
Chemists develop new method to create chiral structures/ScienceDaily
手性上部结构的磁组装方法/科学网
Embracing Technology In Sensing And Counterfeit Detection/SWIFTTELECAST
Chemists develop new method to create chiral structures/EurekAlert
Chemists develop new method to create chiral structures
SCIENMAG/Bioengineer/PHYS ORG/MIRAGE/
May 22 2023 Dr. Li's research article "A magnetic assembly approach to chiral superstructures" was accepted as a research article in Science. Many thanks to the AAAS editor for editing the manuscript and reviewers for providing helpful comments. We are excited about the discovery of quadrupole chiral field in permanent magnets and its capability in creating chiral superstructures from achiral molecules of any chemical compositions and length scales.
2022
Dec 05 2022 Dr. Li's invited review paper "Smart Nanostructured Materials for SARS-CoV-2 and Variants Prevention, Biosensing and Vaccination" was published in Biosensors.
Nov 30 2022 "Postdoc Fellow Zhiwei Li Draws Inspiration from Nature to Create Smart Nanostructured Materials". Dr. Li received an interview from the Northwestern University (NU) International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) to talk about his motivation in research.
Aug 04 2022 Dr. Li developed an advanced in vivo bioimaging technique by combining materials science with computer coding. It allows automatic search and screen of signals of responsive imaging contrast agents in a real time fashion. Relevant work was published in Nano letters and ACS nano.
Aug 01 2022 Dr. Li was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Richard P. Van Duyne Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Northwestern University (NU) International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN).
Mar 07 2022 Dr. Li was awarded as an outstanding reviewer for Journal of Materials Chemistry C for significant contributions to the journal based on the number, timeliness and quality of the reports over the last 12 months.
Feb 04 2022 Dr. Li received an interview and was selected as thought leader by AZO ROBOTICS to recognize his contribution to developing adaptive soft robotics.
Feb 14 2022 Dr. Li's photonic crystal image was selected as one of Science in pictures by Advanced Science News. Crystals light up!
Jan 27 2022 Dr. Li's research work "Multicolor Photonic Pigments for Rotation‐Asymmetric Mechanochromic Devices" was published in Advanced Materials and featured on the Frontispiece.
2021
Dec 01 2021 Dr. Li's research article "Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming" was published in Science Robotics.
News release: Soft robots can work for oil spill remediation/DIGITAL JOURNAL
Light-Powered Robot Decontaminates on Water’s Surface/PHOTONIC MEDIA
水蒸気を燃料に、水面で動くロボット 海上の掃除や汚染物質の除去などに期待
Soft “Steam Engines” Powered by Light/OPTICS&PHOTONIC NEWS
Door licht aangedreven zachte robots zuigen gelekte olie op
Solar-Powered Robots That Could Clean Up Oil Spills/labroots
Water-strider-inspired robot may one day clean up oil spills/NEW ATLAS
These Light-Powered Soft Robots Can Clean Up Ocean Water/Wonderful Engineering
Light-powered soft robots could suck up oil spills
SPACE DAILY/MIRAGE/Nanowerk/ScienceDaily/PressReleasePoint
Nov 08 2021 Dr. Li's review article "Colloidal self-assemble approach to smart nanostructured materials" was published in Chemical Reviews and featured on cover. Thanks to all contributing authors!
Sep 15 2021 Dr. Li was invited to organize a research topic in the Journal Frontiers in Chemistrytogether with Prof. Le He and Prof. Jingbing Zeng and contributed an editorial to the Journal.
Sep 14 2021 Dr. Li's research work "Creation and Reconstruction of Thermochromic Au Nanorods with Surface Concavity" was published in Journal of American Chemical Society.
Sep 10 2021 Dr. Li's research work on magnetic assembly of nanorods into tetragonal colloidal crystals was published in Science Advances. Thanks for the contribution from all the authors! In this work, a new type of size-dependent magnetic interaction was recognized between nanoscale magnets, which was different from the magnetic dipole-dipole attraction firstly described since 1926. Read more: "Coupling morphological and magnetic anisotropy for assembling tetragonal colloidal crystals"
Apr 14 2021 Dr. Li contributed to a review article published in Chemical Society Reviews.Congratulations to all the authors on this excellent work! It was featured as a cover paper: "From colloidal particles to photonic crystals: advances in self-assembly and their emerging applications"
Mar 29 2021 Dr. Li won the the BioSciTech Presentation Competition! This competition aims to seek advanced nanotechniques for biopreservation. See the ATP-Bio for more information.
2020
Jun 08 2020 Dr. Li's research article "Coupling magnetic and plasmonic anisotropy in hybrid nanorods for mechanochromic responses" was published in Nature Communications.
News release: Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/EurekAlert
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/SCIENMAG
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/nanowerk
Color-changing film could give robots chameleon-like skin/NEW ATLAS
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/PHYS ORG
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/ScienceDaily
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/7thSpace
Nanomaterial gives robots chameleon skin/UCR News
Chameleon skin (nanomaterial made of gold nanoparticles) for robots/FrogHeart
Jun 08 2020 Dr Li's wrote a story behind the nature communications paper. The story "Creating order out of chaos: magnetic alignment makes plasmonic nanostructures shine" was released in Nature Porfilio.
Apr 30 2020 Dr. Li's reviewed recent research activities in colloidal assembly and active tuning of coupled plasmonic nanospheres and published an Opinion in Trends in Chemistry. It was featured as a cover article.
Apr 28 2020 Dr. Li received the 2019 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, which was established by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) in 2003. Among all Chinese overseas graduate students, only 500 are awarded each year globally to recognize their great contributions to scientific research and outstanding accomplishments in academia.
2019
Dec 13 2019 Dr. Li was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of California Riverside. LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Jul 04 2019 Zhiwei's review article "Smart Materials by Nanoscale Magnetic Assembly" was published in Advanced Functional Materials and featured as a cover article. This Review summarizes the recent research progress on nanoscale magnetic assembly approaches toward the development of smart materials, such as photonic crystals, active plasmonic nanostructures, and soft robotics.
May 01 2019 Zhiwei was selected to receive a Dissertation Year Program Fellowship from the Chemistry Department at the University of California Riverside. Keep going!
Feb 18 2019 Zhiwei's review article "Stimuli-Responsive Optical Nanomaterials" was published in Advanced Materials. It provides a comprehensive overview of existing working principles in developing responsive optical nanomaterials within the regime of optical diffraction, absorption, refraction, and light emission.
Presentations
& invited talks
Nov 2023 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit
Talk: Programmable Colloidal Kagome Superlattices for Anisotropic Light Emission
Talk: Light-powered Soft Steam Engines for Self-adaptive Oscillators and Biomimetic Swimming
Related publications: Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming (PDF)
Polarization‐modulated multidirectional photothermal actuators (PDF)
Oct 2021 ATP-Bio NSF Site Visit Meeting
Poster: Synthesis of magnetic and plasmonic nanoparticles for nanowarming
Apr 2021 ACS Spring Meetings and Expositions
Talk: Unconventional Synthesis of Magnetic-Plasmonic Hybrid Nanostructures for Soft Actuators
Related publications: Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming (PDF)
Polarization‐modulated multidirectional photothermal actuators (PDF)
Apr 2021 BioSciTech Symposium
Talk: Polarization-Modulated Multidirectional Photothermal Actuators
Related publications: Polarization‐modulated multidirectional photothermal actuators (PDF)
April 2021 ATP-Bio Webinar Series
Talk: Enhancing the photothermal heating of plasmonic nanorods by nanoscale magnetic assembly
Related publications: Polarization‐modulated multidirectional photothermal actuators (PDF)
Coupling magnetic and plasmonic anisotropy in hybrid nanorods for mechanochromic responses
Aug 2019 ACS Fall Meetings and Expositions
Talk: Magnetic Assembly of Anisotropic Nanostructures into Responsive Photonic Crystals
Related publications: Magnetic assembly of nanocubes for orientation-dependent photonic responses (PDF)
Coupling morphological and magnetic anisotropy for assembling tetragonal colloidal crystals (PDF)
Multicolor Photonic Pigments for Rotation-Asymmetric Mechanochromic Devices (PDF)
Reviews: Colloidal self-assembly approaches to smart nanostructured materials (PDF)
Smart materials by nanoscale magnetic assembly (PDF)
Stimuli‐responsive optical nanomaterials (PDF)
Talk: Unconventional Templated Synthesis of Coupled Magnetic-Plasmonic Nanostructures
Related publications: Coupling magnetic and plasmonic anisotropy in hybrid nanorods for mechanochromic responses
Creation and Reconstruction of Thermochromic Au Nanorods with Surface Concavity (PDF)
Polarization-Modulated Multidirectional Photothermal Actuators (PDF)
Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming (PDF)
Related publications: Magnetically Tunable Plasmon Coupling of Au Nanoshells Enabled by Space-Free Confined Growth (PDF)
Magnetic Field-Modulated Plasmonic Scattering of Hybrid Nanorods for FFT-Weighted OCT Imaging in NIR-II (PDF)
Fast Fourier Transform-weighted Photoacoustic Imaging by In Vivo Magnetic Alignment of Hybrid Nanorods (PDF)
April 2019 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit
Talk: Coupling Magnetic and Plasmonic Anisotropy in Hybrid Nanorods for Mechanochromic Films
Related publications: Coupling magnetic and plasmonic anisotropy in hybrid nanorods for mechanochromic responses
Talk: Magnetic Assembly of Anisotropic Nanostructures into Responsive Photonic Crystals
Related publications: Magnetic assembly of nanocubes for orientation-dependent photonic responses (PDF)
Coupling morphological and magnetic anisotropy for assembling tetragonal colloidal crystals (PDF)
Multicolor Photonic Pigments for Rotation-Asymmetric Mechanochromic Devices (PDF)
Reviews: Colloidal self-assembly approaches to smart nanostructured materials (PDF)
Smart materials by nanoscale magnetic assembly (PDF)
Stimuli‐responsive optical nanomaterials (PDF)
Mar 2019 UC Chemical Symposium
Talk: Responsive Tetragonal Photonic Crystals based on Self-assembly of Nanorods
Related publications: Coupling morphological and magnetic anisotropy for assembling tetragonal colloidal crystals (PDF)
Multicolor Photonic Pigments for Rotation-Asymmetric Mechanochromic Devices (PDF)
Reviews: Colloidal self-assembly approaches to smart nanostructured materials (PDF)
Smart materials by nanoscale magnetic assembly (PDF)
Stimuli‐responsive optical nanomaterials (PDF)
Aug 2018 Nano Engineering for Medicine and Biology Conference
Talk: Coupled Magnetic-plasmonic Anisotropy of Fe3O4/Au Nanorods for Potential Biological Imaging
Related publications: Magnetic Field-Modulated Plasmonic Scattering of Hybrid Nanorods for FFT-Weighted OCT Imaging in NIR-II (PDF)
Fast Fourier Transform-weighted Photoacoustic Imaging by In Vivo Magnetic Alignment of Hybrid Nanorods (PDF)
Apr 2017 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit
Talk: Magnetic Assembly of Nanocubes into Responsive Photonic Crystals
Related publications: Magnetic assembly of nanocubes for orientation-dependent photonic responses (PDF)
Nov 2016 Invited Presentation, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Talk: Stimuli-Responsive Nanostructured Optical Materials
Related publications: Coupling morphological and magnetic anisotropy for assembling tetragonal colloidal crystals (PDF)
Multicolor Photonic Pigments for Rotation-Asymmetric Mechanochromic Devices (PDF)
Reviews: Colloidal self-assembly approaches to smart nanostructured materials (PDF)
Smart materials by nanoscale magnetic assembly (PDF)
Stimuli‐responsive optical nanomaterials (PDF)