News

2025  Oct 1st -  Liao gave a colloquium on Physics Career Paths

Prof. Liao gave a colloquium in his own department. This was not a regular research talk—it was a presentation on "Physics Career Paths." Prof. Liao is trained as an APS (American Physical Society) Career Mentoring Fellow and an IUB College of Arts + Sciences Career Connection Fellow. Surprisingly, there were more than just students (undergraduates, graduate students) and postdocs attending the talk—a number of faculty members also showed up and asked many questions!

• Resources:

• Ikigai (A reason for being): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

• APS Careers Website: https://www.aps.org/careers

• SPS (Society of Physics Students) Careers Toolbox: https://spsjobs.aip.org/article/careers-toolbox/

• Designing Your Life: https://lifedesignlab.stanford.edu/

• APS skills inventory: https://www.aps.org/careers/advice/skills-inventory

• Identify Your Transferable skills: https://www.aps.org/events/webinars/2020/putting-your-science-to-work

• Individual Development Plan (IDP): https://myidp.sciencecareers.org/

• IUB  Career Exploration & Student Employment: https://careerexploration.indiana.edu/

• IUB COAS Walter Center for Career Achievement: https://careers.college.indiana.edu/

2025  Sep 24 -  IUB Physics&Astronomy Undergrad Research Symposium

Summer REU undergraduate student Alex Randerson, who majors in Physics and Optical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, presented his poster titled “Quantum Imaging Using Undetected Photons.” This is a new project conducted in collaboration with Prof. Leung’s group in the engineering department (ISE) during the summer.

2025  Aug 15 - Summer joint group lunch

Just hosted a joint group lunch with our summer undergrad students (Inducing Alex Randerson (front right), who is a rising senior in Physics and Optical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology), IU grad students, and postdocs in the groups.

2025  June 11th - Goodbye Karel and Welcome Dr. Mostafavikhatam 

Farewell to Karel Veselský (a research assistant in our group), his wife Tereza Veselská (a Fulbright scholar at IUB Biology), and their family. Karel worked in my lab over the past six months on a quantum light source project, leading to the realization of multiwavelength ultrafast entangled photon sources. It has been a wonderful experience having him in the lab!

Meanwhile, we welcome Dr. Fatemeh Mostafavikhatam to IUB physics and engineering. Fatemeh is a joint postdoc researcher in my lab and Prof. Leung's lab. Fatemeh received her B.Sc. in Solid State and a M.Sc. in Fundamental Physics. She also earned her second master's at the University of Texas. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Physics from Louisiana State University, where she conducted both theoretical and experimental research in quantum imaging, sensing, and communication. Her work focused on free-space optics and plasmonic platforms utilizing both coherent and thermal sources. After completing her Ph.D., she joined Iowa State University as a postdoctoral researcher, working on a quantum imaging project based on SPDC sources. Currently, she is involved in a quantum imaging project with undetected photons, which explores advanced methods in quantum optics and nonlinear interferometry.

2025  May 7th - Taiwan Delegation visited IU Bloomington. 

Prof. Liao delivered an introductory talk during the AIT Taiwan Delegation's visit to the University. The delegation included representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce–Indianapolis, the American Institute in Taiwan, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and various semiconductor/microelectronics/photonics industry representatives. The delegation aims to explore potential collaboration and partnership opportunities in R&D, workforce development, and manufacturing/business in the state of Indiana and the Midwest.

2025  March 20th - Prof. Liao's prior, collaborative work on X-ray coherent imaging of magnetic nanoparticles has now been published in ACS Applied Nano Materials (link here or arXiv version here). Below is the graphical abstract of the paper, which is also featured by the journal on its cover (link here). 

The data used in this study were acquired by Liao and his collaborators in 2019 summer and winter, during his postdoc — prior to the COVID-19 pandemic! This is six-year-old data—science takes time. Sometimes, a lot of time.

X. Lu, J. Zou, M. Pham, A. Rana, C.-T. Liao, E. Cating-Subramanian, X. Wu, Y. Lo, C. Bevis, R. Karl, S. Lepadatu, Y.-S. Yu, Y. Tserkovnyak, T. Russell, D. Shapiro, H. Kapteyn, M. Murnane, R. Streubel, and J. Miao, "Magnetic Order in Self-Assembled Nanoparticles Revealed by X-ray Vector Ptychographic Tomography," ACS Applied Nano Materials 8, 6643 (2025). arXiv:2401.01284 (2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.5c00461 

2025  March 1st - Prof. Liao's prior work, "Extreme-ultraviolet spatiotemporal vortices via high harmonic generation," has been accepted for publication on Nature Photonics. You can read the arXiv version (here).

R. Martín-Hernández*, G. Gui, L. Plaja, H. K. Kapteyn, M. M. Murnane, C.-T. Liao*, M. Porras, and C. Hernández-García. "Extreme-ultraviolet spatiotemporal vortices via high harmonic generation,". Nature Photonics (2025). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01699-w. arXiv:2412.01716 (2024) 

2025  Feb 13 - A new publication from the Liao Lab 

Our paper "Transverse orbital angular momentum and polarization entangled spatiotemporal structured light," is published on Nanophotonics today. This is a collaborative work with Prof. Hui Min Leung's group (here) and her PhD student, Kefu Mu, from ISE.

H.-C. Huang, K. Mu, H. M. Leung*, and C.-T. Liao*,  Nanophotonics 14, 684 (2025). DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2024-0764 (2024). https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/nanoph-2024-0764/html. 

2025  Feb 11 - Prof. Liao is named inaugural Faculty Innovation Ambassador of IU. 

Eleven IU faculty members (4 from IU Bloomington, 5 from  IU School of Medicine, 2 from IU Indianapolis) were named to the first cohort of Faculty Innovation Ambassadors to help foster a culture of innovation and translate research into impactful solutions. This initiative is a cornerstone of [IU's] efforts to build a strong culture of innovation at IU, empowering researchers to translate their groundbreaking work into real-world solutions. “This inaugural cohort of Faculty Innovation Ambassadors demonstrates the breadth of talent across the university,” IU Vice President for Research Russell J. Mumper said. “Each member brings a unique perspective and expertise, and together, they will help accelerate innovation and create a thriving ecosystem for intellectual property development and commercialization.

IU news link: https://today.iu.edu/live/news/43845-first-cohort-of-faculty-innovation-ambassadors

2025  Jan 01 - Happy New Year! This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). #IYQ2025 

The United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has officially declared 2025 to be IYQ. The mission of the IYQ is to use the occasion of 100 years of quantum mechanics in 2025 to help raise public awareness of the importance and impact of quantum science and applications on all aspects of life. Anyone, anywhere can participate in IYQ by helping others to learn more about quantum on this centennial occasion or simply taking the time to learn more about it themselves. 

https://quantum2025.org/

2024  Dec 21 - The first manuscript (arXiv:2412.16896) from the Liao Lab at IU has been submitted to a journal for consideration for publication (https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16896). This work is led by Dr. Hsiao-Chih Huang, in collaboration with Prof. Hui Min Leung (group website link here) and her PhD student, Kefu Mu, from ISE.

2024  Dec 18-19 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a talk in a workshop at Advanced Materials and Green Energy Research Center (link here) and the Department of Physics (link here), National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). NTNU is in Taipei, Taiwan.

2024  Dec 16-17 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a talk in a special workshop at the Department of Electrophysics (link here), National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), which is in Hsinchu, Taiwan. He also visited Taiwan Photon Source (TPS) at National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu, Taiwan. 

2024  Dec 05 - After waiting for 10 months, our big laser has finally arrived!! Our PHAROS can deliver up to 20W average power, 0.4mJ pulse energy, 10k-1MHz repetition rate, 1030nm wavelength, and 90fs pulses with CEP stability. Its simultaneous laser oscillator output also gives us access to a frequency comb at a 75MHz repetition rate.

2024  Nov 20 - Pre-holiday group lunch! Prof. Liao's group, joined Prof. Leung's group at ISE, hosted a joint group lunch at IU. 

2024  Nov 05 - Our big, new optical tables arrived in the lab(s).

2024  Oct 24 - Prof. Liao was invited to give  a colloquium at the Department of Physics and Optical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana.

2024  Oct 22 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a colloquium at the Department of Chemistry and Physics, Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana.

2024  Oct 05 - Prof. Liao volunteered to show physics demos at the IU Science Fest (https://sciencefest.indiana.edu/) on October 5th Saturday. He lead the demo station called Light & Color.

2024  Sep 10 - Prof. Liao was issued an US patent as an co-inventor! The title of the patent is "Quantum-limited Extreme Ultraviolet Coherent Diffraction Imaging.” WIPO(PCT) WO2020150634A1, Publication No.: US20220100094A1, Patent No.: US 12,085,520 B2. Filed date Jan. 17, 2020; publication date Mar. 31, 2022; issued date Sep. 10, 2024. It took 4+ years!

2024  Sep 05 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a talk at the Colloquium in the Department of Physics at IU Indianapolis (IUI). This is, in fact, the very first Colloquium talk at IUI Physics! Why? IUI was known as "Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)" more than 50 years ago, but it was recently (July 2024) split into IUI and Purdue University in Indianapolis.

2024  Sep 3-4 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a talk at the AMO-QIS (Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physics - Quantum Information Science) Seminar at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana). His talk is titled "Light & Matter & Topology: Probing spin textures and optical phase structures."

2024  July 23-24 - Prof. Liao was invited to give a talk at the 2024 NeXUS User Workshop (https://nsf-nexus.osu.edu/workshops/2024-nexus-user-workshop/) at the Ohio State University.

At the heart of the National Extreme Ultrafast Science Facility (NeXUS) at Ohio State will be an ultrafast laser that delivers a kilowatt of power.  This project will be the first to translate this recently developed technology in high average power, ultrafast lasers developed under the European Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) to the United States.  This laser will be used to produce Extreme Ultraviolet (XUV) and soft X-ray pulses by high harmonic generation.  These ultrafast pulses of XUV light will enable researchers to study how electrons move in molecules and materials at time scales as fast as attoseconds and length scales as small as angstroms. NeXUS is excited to plan for our first Call for Proposals later this fall. The NeXUS website has been updated to include submission instructions, system capabilities (updated regularly), and proposal guidelines. Check it out here: nsf-nexus.osu.edu

2024  July 23 - The first group lunch! Prof. Liao's group (undergrad students, grad students, and a postdoc), joined Prof. Leung's group at ISE, hosted a joint group lunch at IU. 

2024  July 09-10 - Prof. Liao was invited to participate in the 1st DOD-IOS Extreme Light Workshop at the Ohio State University. Prof. Liao served as a panelist in the roundtable discussions, where the workshop's objective is to open dialogue between researchers and (federal) sponsors. 

2024  April 6 - Prof. Liao volunteered to show physics demos at the IU Science Fest (2024 Total Solar Eclipse Edition).

2024  April 2-4 - Prof. Liao attended the 2024 Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER) PIs meeting. This year's meeting is called the 2024 Genomic Science Program and Enabling Capabilities and Resources Principal Investigator Meetings and is in Washington, DC.

2024  March 1- Prof. Liao is featured in the Indiana University's Quantum Science and Engineering Center (QSEc) video: 

Preparing the Quantum Workforce of the Future - QSEc at Indiana University Bloomington.

Quantum computing has the potential to completely change our world. While this technology is still a ways away, quantum science already has applications that we can and should be taking advantage of. At Indiana University's Quantum Science and Engineering Center (QSEc), they've been doing and teaching quantum science for decades. This experience has readily equipped their faculty to find and develop practical applications of the field in anticipation of quantum's looming takeover. QSEc takes on graduate students from non-traditional backgrounds, looking to invite minds outside of physics into the quantum research space. When the next quantum revolution arrives, QSEc will have already prepared the quantum workforce that the future demands.

2023 November-17 - The professor is in! Prof. Liao moved in to his office in Swain West 331 in the Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington.

2023 November - Dr. Liao moved from Boulder, Colorado to Bloomington, Indiana. The move included several homemade equipment shipment to be used in the Liao Lab.