Events Calendar

ECE Seminar: Sangyeon Cho

Title: Semiconductor Nanolaser Particles: TheBuilding Blocks of Next-Generation, Highly Multiplexed Photonic Systems

Abstract: The miniaturization of lasers is essential for Moore’s Law-like scaling in photonics, enabling ultra-dense optical integration for wavelength-division multiplexed computing, communication, and biomedical applications. However, conventional dielectric lasers face diffraction limits, requiring oversized resonators that hinder further miniaturization. This seminar presents a breakthrough in metal-semiconductor nanolasers, the world’s smallest half-wave plasmonic dipole lasers, which operate at room temperature with exceptionally narrow spectral linewidths.

In particle form, these nanolasers integrate seamlessly into microsystems such as biological cells, enabling optical barcoding at the single-cell level. Their emission spectra, captured via Laser Particle Stimulated Emission Microscopy (LASE), enable multiplexed tracking of migrating cells in vitro and in vivo. A combination of top-down lithography for III-V semiconductors and bottom-up synthesis of perovskite materials enables scalable fabrication for mass-producing ultra-compact nanolasers. This advancement opens the door to next-generation photonic and biomedical systems, pushing the boundaries of sub-diffraction-limit lasers, active metasurfaces, nanophotonic computing, and precision medicine.

Bio: Dr. Sangyeon (Fred) Cho is a tenure-track instructor at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He earned a Ph.D. in Medical Physics and Engineering from the MIT-Harvard Program in Health Sciences and Technology in 2019 and a bachelor's degree in Physical Chemistry from KAIST in 2014.

Dr. Cho has been recognized for his excellence in research, mentoring, and scholarship, receiving prestigious honors such as the Mass General Hospital Fundamental Research Fellowship, the Harvard-MIT Martha Gray Prize for Excellence in Research, the Samsung Scholarship Best Scholar Award, the Best Presentation Award at the Gordon Research Conference, recognition as an OPTICA Ambassador, and the Yao-Su Best Mentor Award at the MGH-MIT Summer Institute in Biomedical Optics.

His research focuses on nanolasers for large-scale color multiplexing in micro- and nanosystems, combining laser physics, plasmonics, semiconductor materials, nanofabrication, and imaging to develop next-generation photonic technologies.