Fangzhou Zhao

Welcome to Fangzhou Zhao's homepage

I am a computational physicist working on electronic, optical and topological properties of materials. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Physics in Prof. Steven G. Louie's group at UC Berkeley in May, 2021. I am currently a Humboldt fellow at Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Prof. Angel Rubio's group. I was an Elings fellow working on excited states of defects in materials in the Materials Department at UC Santa Barbara from 2021 to 2023.

Employment

Humboldt Fellow,  Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter,  Jan. 2024 - 

Elings Prize Postdoc Fellow,  Materials Department, UC Santa Barbara, June. 2021 - Dec. 2023,

Education

Ph. D. in Physics, Aug. 2015 - May 2021, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

(Thesis: Topological Electronic Properties and Optical Properties of Graphene Nanoribbons and Carbon Conjugated Systems) 

B.Sc. in Physics, Sept. 2011 - Jun. 2015, Zhiyuan College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

News

I gave an invited talk “Trap-assisted Auger-Meitner recombination from first principles” in the NERSC NUG meeting as a 2023-2024 Early Career Achievement Award winner. 

I gave an invited talk “First-Principles Modeling of Materials: Recombination Processes and Topology,” in the Physics Department Colloquium at the Louisiana State University. 

I gave an invited talk “First-Principles Modeling of Materials: Recombination Processes, Topology, and Magnetism” in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California at Santa Cruz. 

I won the NERSC High Performance Computing Achievement Awards   --  High Impact Scientific Achievement, For developing a first-principles computational formalism to calculate the rate of “trap-assisted Auger-Meitner” (TAAM) recombination.

I gave an invited talk "Trap-assisted Trap-Assisted Auger-Meitner Recombination from First Principles" at the 32nd International Conference on Defects in Semiconductors (ICDS) held at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

I won the Corbett Prize at the 32nd International Conference on Defects in Semiconductors (ICDS) held at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The Prize has 28 years of history and is given to the best early career researcher(s) at each ICDS held every two years. (Wikipedia of Corbett Prize Awardees). The prize is for our recent work on trap-assisted Auger-Meitner recombination. Congratulations!

Our research achievement on trap-assisted Auger-Meitner recombination is reported in "Compound Semiconductor" journal. 

Our research achievement on trap-assisted Auger-Meitner recombination is reported as top news in the College of Engineering of UC Santa Barbara! 

Our paper "Trap-assisted Trap-Assisted Auger-Meitner Recombination from First Principles" is published in Physical Review Letters. 

I got the Travel Award from the Quantum Foundry of UC Santa Barbara. 

I got the 2021-2022 Outstanding Postdoctoral Researcher Award from the Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC) in UC Santa Barbara

I got the "Special Excellence Award” for Outstanding Self Finance Student Abroad, which is only awarded to 20 top Chinese students who study abroad each year all over the world. 

Our paper Spin Splitting of Dopant Edge States in Magnetic Zigzag Graphene Nanoribbons is published in Nature! It is also reported as a news in Nature. 

Our paper "Topological Phases in Graphene Nanoribbons Tuned by Electric Fields" is published in Physical Review Letters. 

I am selected as the Elings Prize Postdoctoral fellow in the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) in UC Santa Barbara.