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Zheng Sun

Professor

State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy      

About

  • Department: State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy
  • Graduate School: The City University of New York
  • Degree: Ph.D
  • Academic Credentials: Ph.D
  • PostCode: 200241
  • Tel: 18017854698
  • Fax:
  • Email: zsun@lps.ecnu.edu.cn
  • Office: A307 Optics Building
  • Address: 500 Dongchuan Rd

Education

2012/8-2017/9  Ph.D. Physics The City University of New York, Advisor: Prof. Vinod Menon

2008/9-2012/1  M.A. Physics  Fudan University  Advisor: Prof. Zhanghai Chen; Prof. Xuechu Shen 

2004/9-2008/6  B.S. Physics    Zhejiang Normal University Advisor: Prof. Sheng Li


WorkExperience

2017/11--2020/10 Univeristy of Pittsburgh             Postdoctoral fellow     Advisor: Prof. David Snoke

2020/12--Now        East China Normal University   Professor (Tenure track)

Resume

    I’m a researcher in physics and my interest field can be best summarized as exploration of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. The main research focus areas are development of: photonic structures that confine light and artificially engineered optical materials such as metamaterials, optical micro-cavities and hybrid excitonic materials display optical properties that surpass naturally occurring materials. These focus areas are motivated by the quest to develop next generation computing technologies including those that exploit the quantum property of light, ultrasensitive sensors for chemical and biological detection, and high efficiency energy transfer systems.

My Website: http://sunzheng85.github.io/ZSUN/


Other Appointments

Serve as Reviewer for the following journals:

Nature; Nature Photonics; Nature Nanotechnology; Light Science & Applications; Nature Communications; ACS Nano; Nano Letters; Physical Review Letters; Physical Review X; Optica and so on.


Research Fields

   Our experimental group uses a wide array of optical methods to study fundamental questions of quantum mechanics in semiconductor systems. Our optical methods include ultrafast spectroscopy on femtosecond and picosecond time scales, single-photon counting and correlation, real-space and momentum space (Fourier) imaging with CCD cameras, and nonlinear optics such as two-photon absorption and the optical Stark effect. We can also apply variable stress to samples to create potential gradients to move particles inside solids, vary temperature down to cryogenic temperatures, and measure transport with electronics. 


    One of the main efforts in our lab at present in the study of polariton condensates in microcavities. The polaritons are essentially photons dressed with an effective mass and strong interactions due to the special design of the solid-state microcavity structures we use. These interacting photons can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation, which is a state of matter with spontaneous coherence. We can see the superfluid flow of the polariton condensate over millimeter distances; we can also trap the condensate in various potentials, and we can see interference due to the coherence of the condensate. 


  This work connects to several fundamental questions. One topic is how coherence can occur spontaneously (enphasing) in systems like lasers and condensates and how coherence is lost (dephasing) in standard quantum systems.  This, in turn, relates to the deep question of why there is irreversibility in nature, that is, the arrow of time. Another topic is how phase transitions can occur in nonequilibrium systems. 


     A new effort in our group is looking at the effect of a polariton condensate on electronic transport. This may allow a light-induced superconductor, in which there are dramatic effects on conduction when the polariton condensate appears. We are also looking at new material such as the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) systems so that the polariton condensate effects can be moved to room temperature.


What is Polariton?



  •  What are two-dimensional materials?


The movies were made by Sheffield University

  


Enrollment and Training

Course

Scientific Research

1. Toward a room temperature Schafroth superconductor based on charged excitonic complexes

    In 1954, Schafroth proposed a mechanism for superconductivity that is physically possible, but ended up not being the explanation of the well-known BCS superconductors. The proposal argued correctly that a Bose condensate of charged bosons should also be a superconductor. In 1996, V.I. Yudson proposed a way to produce a charged boson by attaching two free charges to an exciton in a semiconductor, to make a quaternion. While that state was never seen in III-V semiconductors, our calculations show that it is predicted to be stable in structures made with monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials. We present experimental spectroscopic measurements that agree with this theory, which indicate that we have observed this charged-boson state in this type of structure. This opens up a new path for pursuing room temperature superconductivity. [Read More]

Zheng Sun* et.al,  Nano Lett., 21(18), 7669-7675 (2021) 


2. Photoluminescence switching in a two-dimensional atomic crystal

    Two-dimensional materials are an emerging class of new materials with a wide range of electrical and optical properties and potential applications. Single-layer structures of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides are gaining increasing attention for use in field-effect transistors. Here, we report a photoluminescence switching effect based on single-layer WSe2 transistors. Dual gates are used to tune the photoluminescence intensity. In particular, a side-gate is utilized to control the location of ions within a solid polymer electrolyte to form an electric double layer at the interface of electrolyte WSe2 and induce a vertical electric field. Additionally, a back-gate is used to apply a 2nd vertical electric field. An on-off ratio of the light emission up to 90 was observed under constant pump light intensity. In addition, a blue shift of the photoluminescence line up to 36 meV was observed. [Read More]

Zheng Sun* et.al ACS Nano, 15 (12), 19439-19445 (2021) 


3. Observation of the Interlayer Exciton Gases in WSe2-p:WSe2 Heterostructures

    Interlayer excitons (IXs) possess a much longer lifetime than intralayer excitons due to the spatial separation of the electrons and holes; hence, they have been pursued to create exciton condensates for decades. The recent emergence of two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and of their van der Waals heterostructures (HSs), in which two different 2D materials are layered together, has created new opportunities to study IXs. Here we present the observation of IX gases within two stacked structures consisting of hBN/WSe2/hBN/p:WSe2/hBN. The IX energy of the two different structures differed by 82 meV due to the different thickness of the hBN spacer layer between the TMD layers. 

Zheng Sun* et.alACS Photonics, 7(7), 1622-1627 (2020) 


4. Polaritons 2D TMDs and Devices

    Two-dimensional atomic crystals of graphene, aswell as transtion-metal dichalcogenides, have emerged as a class of materals that demonstrate strong interaction with light. This interaction can be further controlled by embedding such materials into optical microcavities. When the interaction rate is engineered to be faster than dissipation from the light and matter entities, one reaches the ‘strong coupling’ regime. This results in the formation of half-light, half-matter bosonic quasiparticles called microcavity polaritons.  Realizing strong coupling at room temperature in two-dimensional materials that offer a disorder-free potential landscape provides an attractive route for the development of practical polaritonic devices.

1. Zheng Sun, et al., Nat. Photonics, 11, 491-496 (2017)

2. Zheng Sun*, et al., [Invited], Nat. Photonics, [News and Views], 13, 370-371, (2019)

3. X. Liu, T. Galfsky, Z. Sun, et al., Nat. Photonics, 9, 30–34 (2015)

4. Biswanath Chakraborty, Jie Gu, Zheng Sun, et al., Nano Lett., 18 (10), 6455-6460 (2018)

5. Zheng Sun*, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 115, 161103 (2019) 

6. Zheng Sun*, et al., Solid State Communications, 288, 18-21 (2019) 


5. Hyperbolic Metamaterials

    Light-matter interactions can be controlled by manipulating the photonic environment. An optical topological transition in strongly anisotropic metamaterials that results in a dramatic increase in the photon density of states—an effect that can be used to engineer this interaction. The increased rates of spontaneous emission of emitters positioned near the metamaterial could be modified by controlling the transition in the topology of the iso-frequency surface from a closed ellipsoid to an open hyperboloid using artificially nanostructured metamaterials. Altering the topology of the iso-frequency surface by using metamaterials provides a fundamentally new route to manipulating light-matter interactions.

1. T. Galfsky, Zheng Sun#, et al., Nano Lett., 16(8), 4940-4945 (2016) 

2.  T. Galfsky, Z. Sun, et al., Optical Materials Express, 5(12), 2878-2883 (2015)


6. Polariton GaAs Quantum Wells

    We present a study of the macroscopic dynamics of a polariton condensate formed by non-resonant optical excitation in a quasi-one-dimensional ring shaped microcavity. The presence of a gradient in the cavity photon energy creates a macroscopic trap for the polaritons in which a single mode condensate is formed. With time- and energy-resolved imaging we show the role of interactions in the motion of the condensate as it undergoes equilibration in the ring. These experiments also give a direct measurement of the polariton-polariton interaction strength above the condensation threshold. Our observations are compared to the open-dissipative one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation which shows excellent qualitative agreement.











1. S. Mukherjee, Z. Sun, et al., Phys. Rev. B, 100(24), 245304 (2019)

2. S. Mukherjee, Z. Sun, et al., Phys. Rev. B, 103(16), 165306 (2021)




Academic Achievements

Selected Publications (Google Scholar):

* Corresponding author; # Co-first author)

Under Consideration

1. Yongsheng Hu, Danqun Mao, Linqi Chen, Yuanjun Guan, Zhe-Yu Shi, Long Zhang, Hongxing, Dong, Hongxing Xu, Wei Xie, Jian Wu, Zheng Sun*, “ Cavity-enhanced superfluorescence induced stimulated energy transfer in perovskite quantum dot supperlattice” (2024)

2. J. Beaumariage, Z. Sun, H. Alnatah, D. M. Myers, M. Steger, L. N. Pfeiffer, K. West, Z. Wasilewski and D. W. Snoke, “Measurement of exciton fraction of microcavity exciton-polaritons using transfer-matrix modeling” (2024)

3. Yuening Fan, Qiaochu Wan,  Qi Yao, Xingzhou Chen, Yuanjun Guan, Hassan Alnatah, Daniel Vaz, Jonathan Beaumariadge, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Jian Wu, Zheng Sun* and David Snoke, “High efficiency of exciton-polariton lasing in a 2D multi-layer structure” (2024)


2024

1. Danqun Mao, Linqi Chen, Zheng Sun*, Min Zhang, Zhe-yu Shi, Yongsheng, Hu, Long Zhang, Jian Wu, Hongxing Dong, Wei Xie, Hongxing Xu, “ Observation of transition from superfluorescence to polariton condensation in perovskite quantum dots” , Light Sci. Appl., 13 (1), 34 (2024) 


2023

1. Xingzhou Chen, Hassan Alnatah, Danqun Mao, Mengyao Xu, Qiaochu Wan, Jonathan Beaumariage, Wei Xie, Hongxing Xu, Zhe-Yu Shi, David Snoke, Zheng Sun*, Jian Wu, “ Bose condensation of upper-branch exciton-polaritons in a transferrable microcavity”, Nano Lett., 20 (23), 9538-9546 (2023) 

2. Min Zhang, Yuan Tian, Xingzhou Chen, Zheng Sun*, Xiaolong Zhu, Jian Wu, “ Ultra-large Rabi splitting in the plasmon-exciton polaritons at room temperature”, Nanophotonics, 12 (16), 3267-3275 (2023) 

3. Xingzhou Chen, Zheng Sun*, Ming Zhang, Ming Li, Zhigao Hu, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, David Snoke, Zhe-Yu Shi, Jian Wu, “Broadband enhancement of absorption by two-dimensional atomic crystals modeled as non-Hermitian photonics scattering”, Appl. Phys. Lett., 122, 0411105 (2023) 

4. D. W. Snoke, V. Hartwell, J. Beaumariage, S. Mukherjee, Y. Yoon, D. M. Myers, M. Steger, Z. Sun, K. A. Nelson, L. N. Pfeiffe, “ Experimental determinations of polariton-polariton interactions in microcavities”, Phys. Rev. B, 107, 165302  (2023)

5. Jingyan Feng, Hui Li, Zheng Sun, Tim Byrnes, “ Entanglement generation and detection in split exciton-polariton condensates”, Phys. Rev. A, 108 053301 (2023) 


2022

1. Fei Chen, Hui Li, Hang Zhou, Song Luo, Zheng Sun, Ziyu Ye, Fenghao Sun, Jiawei Wang, Yuanlin Zheng, Xianfeng Chen, Hongxing Xu, Hongxing Xu, Tim Byrnes, Zhanghai Chen, Jian Wu, “Optically Controlled Femtosecond Polariton Switch at Room Temperature”, Phys. Rev. Lett., 129, 057402 (2022)

2. Fei Chen, Hang Zhou, Hui Li, Song Luo, Zheng Sun, Zhe Zhang, Fenghao Sun, Beier Zhou, Hongxing Dong, Huailiang Xu, Hongxing Xu, Alexey Kavokin, Zhanghai Chen, Jian Wu, “Femtosecond dynamics of a polariton bosonic cascade at room temperature”, Nano Lett., 22 (5), 2023-2029 (2022)

3. Fei Chen, Hang Zhou, Ziyu Ye, Song Luo, Zheng Sun, Yuanlin Zheng, Xianfeng Chen, Huailiang Xu, Hongxing Xu, Tim Byrnes, Hui Li, Zhanghai Chen, Jian Wu, “Buildup dynamics of room-temperature polariton condensation”, Phys. Rev. B, 106 (2), L020301 (2022)

4. Ziyu Ye, Fei Chen, Hang Zhou, Song Luo, Fenghao Sun, Zheng Sun, Yuanlin Zheng, Xianfeng Chen, Huailiang Xu, Zhanghai, Chen, Hui Li, Jian Wu, “Exciton-Polarization-dependent dynamics of polariton condensates at room temperature” Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 34 (22) (2022)


2021

1. Zheng Sun*, Ke Xu, Chang Liu, Jonathan Beaumariage, Jierui Liang, Susan K Fullerton-Shirey, Zhe-Yu Shi, Jian Wu, David Snoke, “Photoluminescence switching in a two-dimensional atomic crystal”, ACS Nano 15 (12), 19439-19445 (2021) 

2. Z. Sun*, J. Beaumariage, Q.WanH. AlnatahN. HouglandJ. ChisholmQ. CaoK. WatanabeT. TaniguchiB. HuntI. V. BondarevD. W. Snoke, “Charged bosons made of fermions in a solid state system without Cooper pairing”, Nano Lett., 21 (18), 7669-7675 (2021) 

3. Xu Wang, Lishu Wu, Xuewen Zhang, Weihuang YangZheng Sun, Jingzhi Shang, Wei Huang and Ting Yu, “Observation of Bragg Polaritn in Monolayer Tungsten Disulphide”, Nano Research 15, 1479-1485 (2021)

4. Shouvik Mukherjee, Valera K Kozin, Anton V Nalitov, Ivan A Shelykh, Zheng Sun, David M Myers, Burcu Ozden, Jonathan Beaumariage, Mark Steger, Loren N Pfeiffer, Ken West, David W Snoke, “Dynamics of spin polarization in tilted polariton rings”, Phys. Rev. B, 103, 165306 (2021)

5. Fei Chen, Hui Li, Hang Zhou, Ziyu Ye, Song Luo, Zheng Sun, Fenghao Sun, Jiawei Wang, Huailiang Xu, Hongxing Xu, Zhanghai Chen, Jian Wu, “Ultrafast Dynamics of Exciton- Polariton in Optically Tailored Potential Landscapes at Room Temperature” Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter34, 024001 (2021)


Old

1. Zheng Sun, Jie Gu, Areg Ghazryan, Zav Shotan, Christopher R. Considine, Michael Dollar, Biswanath Chakraborty, Xiaoze Liu, Pouyan Ghaemi, S. Kéna-Cohen, Vinod M. Menon, “Optical Control of Room Temperature Valley Polaritons”, Nat. Photonics, 11, 491-496 (2017)

2. Zheng Sun*, David W Snoke, “Optical switching with organics”, [Invited], Nat. Photonics, [News and Views], 13, 370-371, (2019)

3. X. Liu, T. Galfsky, Z. Sun, F. Xia, E. Lin, Y.-H. Lee, S. Kéna-Cohen, and V. M. Menon, “Strong light–matter coupling in two-dimensional atomic crystals”, Nat. Photonics, 9, 30–34 (2015)

4. T Galfsky#, Zheng Sun#, CR Considinel, CT Chou, WC Ko, YH Lee, E Narimanov, “Broadband enhancement of light-matter interaction in 2D semiconductors by photonic hypercrystals”, Nano Lett., 16 (8), 4940-4945 (2016) (Co-first author)

5. Zheng Sun*, Jonathan Beaumariage, Qingrui Cao, Benjamin Hunt, KenjiWatanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, DavidW. Snoke, “Observation of the Interlayer Exciton Gases in WSe2- p: WSe2 Heterostructures”, ACS Photonics, 7 (7), 1622-1627 (2020) 

6. Biswanath Chakraborty, Jie Gu, Zheng Sun, Mandeep Khatoniar, Rezlind Bushati, Alexandra L Boehmke, Rian Koots, Vinod M Menon, “Control of Strong Light-matter Interaction in Monolayer WS2 Through Electric Field Gating”, Nano Lett., 18 (10), 6455-6460, (2018)

7. Zheng Sun*, Jonathan Beaumariage, Ke Xu, Jierui Liang, Shaocong Hou, Stephen R. Forrest, Susan K Fullerton-Shirey, David W. Snoke, “Electric-field-induced optical hysteresis in single-layer WSe2”, Appl. Phys. Lett., 115, 161103 (2019) 

8. Zheng Sun*, Jonathan Beaumariage, Hema C P Movva, Sayema Chowdhury, Anupam Roy, Sanjay K Banerjee, David W Snoke, “Stress-induced bandgap renormalization in atomic crystals”, Solid State Communications, 288, 18-21, (2019) 

9. Zheng Sun, LinHong Yang, XueChu Shen, ZhangHai Chen, “Anisotropic Raman spectroscopy of a single b-Ga2O3 nanobelt”, Science Bulletin, 57(6) (2012) (Cover Story)

10. Qijun Ren, Jian Lu, H H Tan, ShanWu, Liaoxin Sun,Weihang Zhou,Wei Xie, Zheng Sun, Yongyuan Zhu, C Jagadish, S C Shen, Zhanghai Chen, “Spin-Resolved Purcell Effect in a Quantum Dot Microcavity System”, Nano Lett., 12 (7), 3455-3459 (2012)

11. S. Mukherjee, D. M. Myers, R. G. Lena, B. Ozden,  J. Beaumariage, Z. Sun, M. Steger, L. N. Pfeiffer, K. West, A. J. Daley, D. W. Snoke,, “Observation of nonequilibrium motion and equilibration in polariton rings”, Phys. Rev. B, 100, 245304 (2019)

12. Z. Sun, Y. P. Xu, S. Li, T. F. George, “Forbidden Singlet Exciton Transitions Induced by Localization in Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes in a Strng Electric Field”, J. Phys. Chem. B 115 (5), 869-873 (20112)

13. T. Galfsky, Z. Sun, Z. Jacob, V. M. Menon, “Preferential emission into epsilon-near-zero metamaterial”, Opt. Mat. Exp., 5 (12), 2878-2883 (2015)

14. Y. Lin-Hong, D. Hong-Xing, S. Zheng, S Liao-Xin, S Xue-Chu, C Zhang-Hai, “Temperature-Induced Phase Transition of In2O3 from a Phombohedral Structure to a Body-Centered Cubic Structure”, C. Phys. Lett., 28 (8) 087803 (2011)



Honor

2023 Achieving IOP Trusted Reviewer status


10 Visits

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