Eight young researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have been awarded the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macau) by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), for 2023. For the fifth consecutive year, HKU has secured the highest number of projects among its peer institutions since the fund was extended to Hong Kong and Macau for applications by eight designated universities in 2019. The Excellent Young Scientists Fund is an annual grant designed to support young male scientists under age 38 and young female scientists under age 40 who have achieved outstanding research accomplishments, allowing them to further pursue their chosen fields. With only 25 projects funded across Hong Kong and Macau this year, the competition is highly selective. Each project will receive RMB2 million in funding for up to three years through cross-border remittance, directly supporting the researchers’ work in Hong Kong or Macau.
Congratulations to our outstanding young scientists:
Dr Peng Yifan Evan
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
Project Title: Computational Imaging and Mixed Representation
By incorporating advances in artificial intelligence and optics to bridge the long-standing gap of optimal designs between devices and algorithms, Dr. Peng’s research enables physically compact, yet functionally powerful imaging and display solutions, with the potential impact of revolutionizing the camera and display industry. Dr Peng’s proposed research aims to carry out more in-depth research in systematically establishing the software-hardware co-design mechanism in a wider range of intelligent visual sensory systems. In particular, Dr Peng strives to establish a robust design framework using a volume (stack) optics differentiable propagation model; and verify the mechanism of a compact AR holographic display system using an optimized optical combiner and a deep neural network-based hologram generation algorithm.
Dr Xiang Chao
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
Project Title: Heterogeneously integrated optoelectronic devices
Dr Xiang focuses on the research of integrated photonic and optoelectronic devices on silicon. He developed multilayer heterogeneous integration techniques that enabled the single-chip integration of III-V and silicon materials with silicon nitride. Dr Xiang plans to continue the research of heterogeneous silicon nitride photonics and develop wavelength-tunable narrow-linewidth lasers, low-noise active microwave photonic devices, and low-repetition-rate electrically-pumped laser microcombs. At the same time, efforts will be put into the realization of integrating semiconductor optical amplifiers and photodetectors on the same platform. The applicant will optimize the device design and process flow to improve working device yield and study the interaction dynamics of laser and nonlinear microresonators. The research will enable the miniaturized optical systems on chip for high-speed optical communication, high-precision sensing, quantum information processing and so on.