Jingang Li - Research

Innovating Light-Matter Interactions at Multiscale

Fundamental Light-Matter Interactions

I explore light-matter interactions at the micro and nanoscale, such as plasmonics, polaritonics, carrier dynamics, etc. I am interested in a variety of material systems like optical metamaterials, 2D materials, nanowires, and other novel optical materials. The methodology I exploit includes 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

I innovate optics and photonics for applications in human health and environmental remediation. I 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. I 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

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