Welcome to the Liu Research Group

Dr. Liu leads an energy conversion, storage, and management research group focusing on developing computational and experimental tools for understanding nanoscale thermal transport, probing new transport phenomena in micro/nano-scale structures, and applying the results to design thermal management and energy conversion/storage systems with nano-engineered functional materials.

He is currently working on (1) developing ultrafast laser-based pump-probe system for characterizing thermal and elastic properties of materials (e.g. TDTR, TRMOKE, Raman); (2) developing numerical simulation tools for understanding energy transport mechanisms in soft matters and hybrid materials (e.g. moledular dynamics, density functional theory, lattice dynamics); (3) establishing novel functional thermal materials, especially soft materials and hybrid materials. Those materials serve as elementary building blocks for thermal management and energy conversion/storage devices and systems with enhanced performance.

Dr. Liu’s graduate students are motivated to learn; they are familiar with both simulation and experiment work, and tend to solve multidisciplinary, challenging problems. His students have the opportunity to learn multidisciplinary topics in optics, electronics, thermal science, materials, and solid state physics.