Jingang Research Group @ Purdue

Innovating Opto-Thermo-Matter Interactions at Multiscale

Fundamental Light-Matter Interactions

We explore light-matter interactions at the micro and nanoscale, such as plasmonics, polaritonics, carrier dynamics, etc. We are interested in a variety of material systems like optical metamaterials, 2D materials, nanowires, and other novel optical materials. The methodologies we exploit include optical spectroscopy (e.g., dark-field scattering spectroscopy), microscopy (e.g., scanning near-field optical microscopy), and ultrafast pump-probe techniques.

Nanophotonics for Health and Sustainability

We innovate optics and photonics for applications in human health and environmental remediation. We invent new optical tweezing tools to enable the safe manipulation of cells and biological objects for single-cell analysis and disease diagnosis. The novel nanophotonic principles can enable the sensing of biomolecules and external environments with unprecedentedly high sensitivity. We also discover the use of light and 2D materials for C-H activation in complex organic molecules, which can be explored for the photodegradation of waste plastics.

Optical Nanomanufacturing and Nanorobotics

We develop optical techniques for optical manipulation, advanced nanomanufacturing, and nanorobotics. We design an optothermal gate to modulate particle-substrate interactions for versatile optical manipulation, assembly, and rotation of nanoparticles on solid substrates. We also exploit optothermal effects for the optical nanomanufacturing of functional nanostructures.