Principal Investigator

I-Te Lu

✉️ itelu@nycu.edu.tw

Dr. I-Te Lu is a computational materials physicist specializing in first-principles method and light-matter interactions. He works at the interface of density functional theory, quantum electrodynamics, and materials engineering, with a focus on electronic and vibrational properties in photonic environment.

Dr. Lu has been appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrophysics at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan, since Aug. 2026. Before joining NYCU, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Prof. Angel Rubio's research group at MPSD in Germany. His research focuses on developing cavity materials engineering and integrating quantum electrodynamic density functional theory (QEDFT) into large open-source first-principles codes such as OCTOPUS and Quantum Espresso to enable cavity-modified material properties of solids.

Dr. Lu earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science (with a minor in physics) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech in USA. Supervised by Prof. Marco Bernardi at Caltech, he has investigated the interaction between electrons and defects in materials using first-principles methods and co-developed PERTURBO, a large-scale open source code for electron-phonon interactions and carrier dynamics.

Education

2014-2020 Ph.D. in Materials Science (Minor in Physics) | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA

2010-2012 M.S. in Graduate Program for Science & Technology of Accelerator Light Source, Division of Materials Science & Engineering | National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) & National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan

2007-2010 B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering | National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan

Work Experience

08/2026- Assistant Professor | Department of Electrophysics | National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan

07/2021-07/2026 Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), Germany

07/2020-06/2021 Postdoctoral Scholar | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA

07/2015-06/2020 Research Assistant | California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA

08/2013-08/2014 Project Research Assistant | National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan

Awards & Recognitions

2026- Yushan Young Fellow, Ministry of Education, Taiwan

2021-2023 Humboldt Research Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany

2014-2017 Government scholarship for study abroad, Ministry of Education, Taiwan

Invited Talks

08/2026 Ab initio Quantum-Electrodynamical Density Functional Theory for Cavity-Modified Solid-State Materials. XXXVII IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics (CCP2026), Seoul, Korea

12/2025 Controlling Material Properties via Photon Quantum Flucutations in Optical Cavities: A First-Principles Approach to Light–Matter Coupling. Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

12/2025 Tailoring material properties via photon quantum fluctuations: advances in QEDFT for solid-state systems. The 14th International Conference on Advanced Materials and Devices (ICAMD) "MPSD in East Asia: Light-driven Phases", Busan, Korea

08/2025 Cavity Materials Engineering from Quantum Electrodynamical Density Functional Theory (QEDFT). Gordon Research Conference: Quantum Control in the Era of Quantum Technologies, Newport, RI, USA

04/2025 Electron-Photon Exchange-Correlation Approximation for QEDFT and its Recent Developments and Applications for Solid-Sate Materials. 10th School and Workshop on Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory: Prospects and Applications, Benasque, Spain

05/2024 Quantum Electrodynamical Density Functional Theory for Finite and Extended Matter Systems Strongly Coupled to a Cavity. Cavity Control of Quantum Materials Workshop, Hamburg, Germany

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