Yongmin Liu
Professor,
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Professor,
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Center Member,
Cross-College Magnetics Center
Office
- 267 Snell
- 617.373.4457
Lab
- 150 EC
- 617.373.2038
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
- Søren Buus Outstanding Research Award (2024)
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Fellow (2023)
- Fellow Member of Optica (2023)
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Senior Member (2022)
- 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
- Accelerating the Design and Development of Engineered Photonic Materials based on a Data-Driven Deep Learning Approach
- – Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
- Nano-opto-mechanical Piezoelectric Resonant Infrared-sensitive Metamaterials for Quantum-Limited Photodetection
- – Co-Principal Investigator, DARPA
- 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
Department Research Areas
Selected Publications
- Xiong, Bo, Liu, Yu, Xu, Yihao, Deng, Lin, Chen, Chao-Wei, Wang, Jia-Nan, Peng, Ruwen, Lai, Yun, Liu, Yongmin, Wang, Mu (2023). Breaking the limitation of polarization multiplexing in optical metasurfaces with engineered noise. Science, 379(6629),294-299. 10.1126/SCIENCE.ADE5140
- 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.
Jan 31, 2025
2024 Stanford University Annual Assessment of Author Citations
The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2% 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 those who published a paper in 2024 or later.
Aug 28, 2024
Metamaterials Design via and for Computation
MIE/ECE Professor Yongmin Liu was featured in a Nature Computational Science Focus Q&A on “Metamaterials Design via and for Computation,” where he discussed the synergy between photonic metamaterials and AI.
Aug 01, 2024
Revolutionizing Computing With Meta-ONNs
MIE/ECE Professor Yongmin Liu was awarded a $467,930 NSF grant for “Design and Realization of Multiplexed Meta-Optical Neural Networks.” He will design and implement a novel class of metasurface-based ONNs, which can operate at optical frequencies and realize diverse functions.
Jul 24, 2024
$1.5M NSF Grant To Develop New Photonic Materials
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu and ECE Assistant Professor Sunil Mittal, in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University, are leading a $1.5 million NSF DMREF grant for “Accelerating the Design and Development of Engineered Photonic Materials Based on a Data-Driven Deep Learning Approach.”
Feb 01, 2024
Faculty and Staff Awards 2024
The College of Engineering recognized faculty and staff at the annual faculty and staff awards event and thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication in support of our students, college, and university during the 2023-2024 academic year. View award recipients and photo gallery.
Dec 07, 2023
2023 Stanford University Annual Assessment of Author Citations
The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2% 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.
May 15, 2023
Unidirectional Excitation and Reflection of Surface Plasmon Polaritons Using Non-Hermitian Metagratings
MIE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu’s group published their research on “Subwavelength Control of Light Transport at the Exceptional Point by Non-Hermitian Metagratings” in Science Advances.
Feb 14, 2023
$4 Million DARPA Grant for Ultra-Small, Fast, High-Resolution Infrared Sensors
Matteo Rinaldi, professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and director of the Northeastern SMART research center, is leading a $4 million DARPA grant under the DARPA Optomechanical Thermal Imaging (OpTIm) program.
Jan 25, 2023
Liu’s Optical Metasurfaces Research Published in Science
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu’s research on “Breaking the Limitation of Polarization Multiplexing in Optical Metasurfaces With Engineered Noise” was published in Science. It details a new method of using engineered noise to augment the information capacity of an optical polarization multiplexing system.
Jan 06, 2023
Liu Selected as SPIE Fellow
MIE/ECE Associate Professor Yongmin Liu was selected as a fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).