Yongmin Liu
Associate Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Office
- 267 Snell
- 617.373.4457
Lab
- 150 EC
- 617.373.2038
Related Links
Research Focus
Nano optics, nanoscale materials and engineering, nano devices, plasmonics, metamaterials, and applied physics
Education
- PhD (2009), Applied Science and Technology, University of California at Berkley
Honors & Awards
- Faculty Fellow of College of Engineering, Northeastern University (2019)
- NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award (2017)
- Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award (2016)
- SPIE Defense and Commercial Sensing Rising Researcher (2016)
- 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (2016)
- Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad (2009)
- TIME magazine Top 10 Scientific Discoveries and 50 Best Inventions of 2008
- DISCOVER magazine Top 100 Stories of 2008 (ranked No. 7)
- International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) Scholarship Award (2008)
Teaching Interests
- Nanoscience and nanotechnology
- Materials properties and processing
- Dynamics and vibrations
Professional Affiliations
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Optical Society of America (OSA)
- Materials Research Society (MRS)
Research Overview
Nano optics, nanoscale materials and engineering, nano devices, plasmonics, metamaterials, and applied physics
Yongmin Liu Research Group
Interdisciplinary research that bridges engineering, optics, applied physics and nanoscience. Our research is a synergetic integration of fundamental science, nano material/structure design, and prototype device development. We are developing novel nano optical materials and devices for various applications including next-generation optical information processing, super-resolution imaging, efficient light harvesting and ultra-sensitive biomedical detection.
Selected Research Projects
- CAREER: Spin Plasmonics for Ultrafast All-Optical Manipulation of Magnetization in Hybrid Metal- Ferromagnet Structures
- – Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Chiroptical Sensing and Sorting by Structured Materials and Structured Light
- – Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Multi-Functional Optical Meta-Systems Enabled by Deep-Learning-Aided Inverse Design
- – Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
Selected Publications
- Ma, Z., Liu, C., Kudyshev Z. A., Boltasseva, A., Cai, W., Liu, Y. M. (2021). Deep Learning for the Design of Photonic Structures, Nature Photonics 15, 77.
- Cheng, Z., Du, D., Wang, X. J., Cai, Z. Q., Li, L., Wang, C. T., Benabbas, A., Champion, P., Sun, N. X., Pan, L., Liu, Y. M. (2020). All‐Optical Helicity‐Dependent Switching in Hybrid Metal–Ferromagnet Thin Films, Advanced Optical Materials 8, 2000379.
- Cheng, F., Wang, C. T., Su, Z. X., Wang, X. J., Cai, Z. Q., Sun, N. X., Liu, Y. M. (2020). All-Optical Manipulation of Magnetization in Ferromagnetic Thin Films Enhanced by Plasmonic Resonances, Nano Letters 60, 6437.
- Li, L., Yao, K., Wang, Z. J., Liu, Y. M. (2020). Harnessing Evanescent Waves by Bianisotropic Metasurfaces, Laser and Photonics Reviews 14, 1900244.
- Ma, W., Cheng, F., Xu, Y.H., Wen, Q.L., Liu, Y.M. (2019). Probabilistic Representation and Inverse Design of Metamaterials Based on a Deep Generative Model with Semi-Supervised Learning Strategy, Advanced Materials 31, 1901111.
- Su, H., Shen, X., Su, G., Li, L., Ding, J., Liu, F., Zhan, P., Liu, Y. M., Wang, Z. (2018). Efficient Generation of Microwave Plasmonic Vortices via a Single Deep-Subwavelength Meta-Particle, Laser & Photonics Reviews, 12, 1800010.
- Ma, W., Cheng, F., Liu, Y.M. (2018). Deep-Learning-Enabled On-Demand Design of Chiral Metamaterials, ACS Nano, 12(6), 6326–6334.
- Wang, Z.J., Jing, L.Q., Yao, K., Yang, Y.H., Zheng, B., Soukoulis, C.M., Chen, H.S., Liu, Y.M. (2017). Origami-Based Reconfigurable Metamaterials for Tunable Chirality, Advanced Materials, 29, 1700412.
- Wang, L., Wang, Q., Xue, R. D., Chen, H. L., Guo, R. P., Liu, Y. M., Chen, J. (2017). Unidirectional Excitation of Radiative-Loss-Free Surface Plasmon Polaritons in PT-Symmetric Systems, Physical Review Letters 119, 077401.
- Wang, Z.J., Yao, K., Chen, M., Chen, H., Liu, Y.M. (2016). Manipulating Smith-Purcell Emission with Babinet Metasurfaces, Physical Review Letters, 117(15), 157401.

Apr 14, 2022
Harnessing Light-Matter Interactions Using Plasmonic Nanostructures
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu received a $466K NSF grant for “Elucidating and Controlling the Spectral, Spatial and Temporal Responses of Plasmonic Nanostructures based on a Data-Driven Approach.”
Dec 23, 2021
COE Professors Selected in Stanford University List of Top 2% Scientists Worldwide
The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists with single-year impact in various disciplines. The selection is based on the top 100,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above. The list below includes […]

Aug 23, 2021
Advancing the Design of Nanoscale Photonic Devices
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu was awarded a $400K NSF grant for “Non-Hermitian and Topological Plasmonic Devices for Light Manipulation at the Nanoscale.”

Oct 07, 2020
Interfacing Photonics with Artificial Intelligence
MIE & ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu published an invited review article in Nature Photonics about deep learning for the design of photonic structures.

Sep 09, 2019
Liu Awarded NSF Grant for Chiral Molecules
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu was awarded a $385K NSF grant for the “Chiroptical Sensing and Sorting by Structured Materials and Structured Light”.

Jul 01, 2019
Prof. Yongmin Liu Published in Advanced Materials
MIE/ECE Professor Yongmin Liu’s paper Probabilistic Representation and Inverse Design of Metamaterials Based on a Deep Generative Model with Semi‐Supervised Learning Strategy was published in Advanced Materials.

Jun 19, 2019
Using Deep-Learning for Multi-Functional Meta-Systems
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu and ECE/Koury Associate Professor Yun “Raymond” Fu were awarded a $530K NSF grant for “Multi-Functional Optical Meta-Systems Enabled by Deep-Learning-Aided Inverse Design”.

Apr 29, 2019
Faculty and Staff Awards 2019
Congratulations to all the winners of the faculty and staff awards, and to everyone for their hard work and dedication during the 2018-2019 academic school year. See Photo Gallery Faculty Fellow Matthew Eckelman, CEE Yongmin Liu, MIE Outstanding Teacher of First Year Engineering Students Joseph Depasquale, Chemistry Brian O’Connell, FYE Sumi Seo, Mathematics Matthew Webber, […]

Sep 17, 2018
Paper by Associate Professor Liu Selected as Back Cover for Laser & Photonics Reviews
A paper by MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu was selected for the back cover of Laser & Photonics Reviews’ September 2018 issue. The paper, titled Efficient Generation of Microwave Plasmonic Vortices via a Single Deep-Subwavelength Meta-Particle, is authored by Hai Su, Xiaopeng Shen, Guangxu Su, Lin Li, Jianping Ding, Fanxin Liu, Peng Zhan, Yongmin Liu, and […]

Jun 14, 2018
Metamaterials Might Allow for Invisibility
MIE/ECE Assistant Professor Yongmin Liu has developed a machine learning algorithm to identify new metamaterial structures which would allow for light absorption and maybe someday even invisibility. In the world of Harry Potter, invisibility cloaks are made from the hair of a magical creature called a Demiguise. In our world, they may one day be […]