New paper published in Journal of Physics D!

Congratulations to Jason Pan and his coauthors (Tommy Kmieciak, Yen-Ting (Andy) Liu, Matthew Wildenradt) on a review paper, “Quantifying molecular- to cellular-level forces in living cells,” which is published in Journal of Physics D!

Invited Talk

Yang gives an invited seminar for the Electrical and System Engineering Department at Washington University in St Louis! Thank you Mark Lawrence for the invitation!

Invited Talk

Yang gives an invited seminar for the Photonics Research Centre at Macquarie University! Thank you Mikolaj Schmidt for the invitation!

Invited Talk

Yang gives an invited talk at MRS Spring 2021! Thank you Howard Lee for the invitation!

Congratulations on Hanwei’s Fellowship!

Congratulations to Hanwei on winning the Hong, McCully and Allen Fellowship from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign! Well deserved, Hanwei, keep up the good work!

New paper accepted for publication in VIEW!

Congratulations to Hanwei Wang on his first-author paper, “On-demand field shaping for enhanced magnetic resonance imaging using an ultrathin reconfigurable metasurface”, which is accepted for publication in VIEW!

Congratulations on Jason’s scholarship!

Congratulations to Jason on winning two prestigious scholarships, the 2019-2020 Ellery B. Paine Outstanding Junior Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Eggers Engineering Scholarship from Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign! Well deserved!

Invited Talk


Yang gives an invited talk at the first Online OSA Sensors and Sensing Congress! Thank you Frank Vollmer for the invitation!

Invited Talk

Yang gives an invited seminar for the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Notre Dame. Thank you David Burghoff for the invitation!

We are hiring!

Prospective lab members should email a CV that summarizes their research skills and interests to Prof. Yang Zhao

Postdoctoral Fellows:
We currently have one position opening for postdocs. Candidates in the fields of optics, nanophotonics, biophysics, and atomic force microscopy are preferred.

Graduate Students:
We are actively looking for exceptionally qualified graduate students with a background in Electrical Engineering, Bioengineering/Biology, Materials Science, and Physics/Applied Physics to join our lab.

Undergraduate Students:
We welcome UIUC undergraduates who are interested in gaining research experience in the areas of biophotonic devices, microscopy, nano-optics and nanophotonics. Please note that we generally discourage short term projects (single semester) since there is a significant amount of training required prior to participating in one of our research programs. Students, who are interested in long-term (two semesters or longer) intensive research projects, are highly encouraged to contact Prof. Zhao.