Introduction to the Research Center

The Liquid Crystal and Photon Technology Research Center of Nanjing University focuses on four research directions: liquid crystal and soft matter photonics, flexible electronics and intelligent sensing, metamaterials and micro nano optics, quantum optics and nonlinear optics. The center currently has 12 professors, 5 associate professors, 3 specially appointed full-time researchers, 5 postdoctoral fellows, 4 specially appointed research assistants, and nearly 80 doctoral and master's students. The history of the research center can be traced back to the crystal growth research laboratory of Professor Min Naiben's research group in the Physics Department of Nanjing University, which was established in the 1980s. Under the leadership of Professor Min Naiben, the research laboratory has continuously undertaken projects in the field of new materials under the "Seventh Five Year Plan", "Eighth Five Year Plan", and "Ninth Five Year Plan" national plans. A series of influential achievements have been made in the growth of "poly sheet multi domain" optical superlattice lithium niobate crystals and the development of blue light frequency doubling devices. In 1996, it passed the project achievement appraisal organized by the former State Education Commission and was praised as an "internationally leading work". The members of the center have undertaken multiple national and provincial-level scientific research projects, including 973, 863, National Key R&D Program projects, JKW projects, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and enterprise cooperation projects. More than 400 papers have been published in journals such as Science, PRL, Nature/Science, Adv. Mater, etc., and 4 patents have been converted or implemented, showing a good trend of rapid development. The performance evaluation of the completed key research and development plan has been excellent, with distinctive features in micro nano optics represented by metasurfaces and soft matter optics represented by liquid crystals. The achievements have won the top ten advances in Chinese optics in 2018, 2019, and 2023, the first prize of Jiangsu Science and Technology Award in 2020, the annual progress of American Optical Society in 2020 and 2022, the first prize of Natural Science Award of Chinese Optical Engineering Society in 2023, and the first prize of Natural Science Award of Chinese Optical Society in 2024.