Biography
Yuhao Zhang has been a full professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) since November 2024. From 2018 to 2024, he was the Shirish S. Sathaye Associate Professor and Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech, leading the power semiconductor research at the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES), one of the largest academic research centers in power electronics worldwide. He received his Ph. D. and S. M. in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2017 and 2013, respectively, as well as his B. S. in physics from Peking University in 2011. He has authored over 200 journal papers and conference proceedings and 2 book chapters and holds 7 granted U. S. patents. He co-authors over 10 highlight/feature/prize papers, and his research work has been covered over 100 times by Nature Electronics, EE Times, Power Electronics, Semiconductor Today, and Compound Semiconductor, etc. He has delivered over 60 invited talks at preeminent international conferences and seminars. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. He received the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2017, two IEEE George Smith Awards (best paper award of the year in IEEE Electron Device Letters) in 2019 and 2023, four Technical Highlights of IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2021, the Outstanding New Assistant Professor Award and Faculty Fellow Award of Virginia Tech in 2021 and 2022, and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2023, and the Compound Semiconductor Week Young Scientist Award in 2025. His students received the Ph.D. Thesis Talk Award of the IEEE Power Electronics Society and several APEC Best Presentation Awards. His group has a strong industrial collaboration, working with over 20 companies and having published over 30 collaborative papers. The JEDEC standard has recommended multiple reliability test methods developed by the group for industrial power device qualification.
His group mainly published in the communities of Electron Devices and Power Electronics. Here is a sketch of the group’s major corresponding-authored papers till Aug. 2025.
- Electron Devices: IEDM (21), ISPSD (12), IRPS (7), IEEE Electron Device Lett. (21), Appl. Phys. Lett. (14), IEEE Trans. Electron Devices (16)
- Power Electronics: IEEE Trans. Power Electronics (21), IEEE J. Emerg. Sel. Top. Power Electron. (3), APEC (16), ECCE (7)
- Broad Fields: Nat. Electron. (1), Nat. Commun. (1), Nat. Rev. Electr. Eng. (1), Adv. Mater. (1)
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Selected Publications
- Y. Qin, Z. Yang, H. Gong, A. Jacobs, J. Spencer, M. Porter, B. Wang, K. Sasaki, C-H. Lin, M. Tadjer, and Y. Zhang*, “10 kV, 250 oC Operational, Enhancement-Mode Ga2O3 JFET with Charge-Balance and Hybrid-Drain Designs,” 2024 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Dec. 2024 (selected as the IEDM Technical Highlight)
- X. Yang, R. Zhang, Q. Yang, Q. Song, E. Litchford, A. J. Walker, S. Pidaparthi, C. Drowley, D. Dong, Q. Li, and Y. Zhang*, “Evaluation and MHz Converter Application of 1.2-kV Vertical GaN JFET,” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 39, no. 12, pp. 15720–15731, Dec. 2024.
- M. Xiao, Y. Wang, R. Zhang, Q. Song, M. Porter, E. Carlson, K. Cheng, K. Ngo, and Y. Zhang*, “Robust Avalanche in 1.7 kV Vertical GaN Diodes With a Single-Implant Bevel Edge Termination,” IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 44, no. 10, pp. 1616–1619, Oct. 2023. (2023 IEEE George Smith Award)
- Y. Zhang*, F. Udrea*, and H. Wang*, “Multidimensional device architectures for efficient power electronics,” Nature Electronics, vol. 5, no. 11, Nov. 2022.
- Xiao, Y. Ma, Z. Du, V. Pathirana, K. Cheng, A. Xie, E. Beam, Y. Cao, F. Udrea, H. Wang, and Y. Zhang*, “Multi-Channel Monolithic-Cascode HEMT (MC2-HEMT): A New GaN Power Switch up to 10 kV,” 2021 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Dec. 2021. (selected as the IEDM Technical Highlight, covered by Nature Electronics).