Multiscale Light–Matter Interactions: From Perovskite Lattice Responses to Metasurface-based Bioimaging

Nanophotonics has been enjoying a trend of convergence with many technologies in the past decades, including renewable energy, cancer therapy and sensing. It is foreseeable that nanophotonics will be indispensable in emerging industries such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and personalized medicine.
My research explores light–matter interactions at the subwavelength scale in emerging photonic materials, with broad implications for device technologies. In this talk, I will first present our work using optical in-situ electron microscopy to uncover how the perovskite lattice responds to light and charge carriers, and how this interplay drives reversible phase segregation in mixed halide perovskites. I will then highlight our advances in perovskite-based optoelectronics, including the realization of room-temperature, continuous-wave chiral exciton–polariton lasers. Finally, I will discuss our interdisciplinary efforts in nanophotonics, where tailoring the optical and thermal responses of metasurfaces has enabled ultrasensitive photothermal imaging for biomolecular detection.

Speaker Biography: Siying Peng is an assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China. Siying received her Ph.D. in physics from California Institute of Technology and B.S. in physics and mathematics from Texas A&M University. She was a GLAM Fellowship postdoctoral researcher at the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials at Stanford University.