Now I am a Ph.D student in Dr. Ho's group. Our group focuses on the research of atomic scale by the powerful tool- scanning tunneling microscope (STM). I joined the sub-group to construct a sub-Kelvin scanning tunneling microscope. I started my life of working like a machinist to make some vacuum components.  Also I learned some electronics to control our home made STM.

In the two years of graduate research, I worked with Dr. Juen-Kai Wang in the area of ultrafast dynamics and devoted all my time to work on the thesis “Photophysics and Photochemistry of Distyrylbenzene (DSB)”. This molecule is interesting not only because its high luminescence efficiency but also acting as an extension of photoisomerization of stilbene. The final target of this study is to measure isomerization rate of DSB isomers.  From synthesis, separation, spectroscopy work (including absorption, fluorescence, IR, Raman, lifetime and quantum yield), kinetics and femtosecond pump-probe measurements, each step challenged my experimental skill and patience.

     Undergraduate Research (1997-1999)

 In my junior and senior year, I joined Dr. Juen-Kai Wang‘s research plan: ”Vibrational Spectroscopy of Hydrogenated Semiconductor Surface”. In addition to the surface Raman spectroscopy method, collection of extremely weak signal, complex data fitting and analysis also benefited me a lot in latter research.

In the last year of my college, I was recommended as an exchange student with full fellowship to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. This was a great honor and wonderful experience. I worked with Dr. Mark Rutland to prepare my thesis “Thin Film and Foam Behavior of Milk Protein”. I used the Thin-Film-Balance apparatus to measure the dynamic interaction force between two protein-based thin film surfaces, which is very powerful in determining the film thickness down to a few nanometers.