Bolin Liao, Ph.D.

Professor and Vice-Chair, Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara

 

2026 Experimental Physics Investigator

Bolin Liao, Ph.D.
Credit: Matt Perko
 

Research Description

Bolin Liao’s research aims to create a new kind of ultrafast electron microscope that can directly image how light-induced excitations called polaritons form, move, and interact inside two-dimensional materials. To do this, he plans to adapt scanning ultrafast electron microscopy so that femtosecond electron pulses can pass through or travel near suspended atomically thin samples under laser illumination, allowing his team to track polariton dynamics in space and time and test whether these fields can also reshape the quantum state of free electrons.

Research Impact

Professor Liao’s work could make it possible to observe coupled light-matter behavior in quantum materials on scales that are too small and too fast for conventional optical tools to resolve. By showing how engineered two-dimensional materials might mediate interactions between light and free electrons, the project has the potential to open new ways to study moiré systems and other nonequilibrium phenomena, while laying a foundation for advances in nanoscale electron optics, quantum-coherent measurement, and electron-beam control.

 
 

related links

Experimental Physics Investigators Initiative Science University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Mechanical Engineering Back

Education

Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bachelor of Engineering, Tsinghua University

Affiliated Investigators