Her Research is Taking Off
sensing and communications. Prof. Gu, her students, and collaborators are applying their expertise to addressing one of society's most important challenges — exploring what lies beyond earth's boundaries.”
generation, amplification, modulation, and detection of optical signals. “Its unique structure gives it unique electronic properties not enabled by bulk materials,” said Gu.
UD Professor Tingyi Gu wins major grants to develop hybrid materials for communications devices and study 2D material based optoelectronic devices.
In 2017, Gu was also one of 43 scientists nationwide to receive a grant through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program to develop “nextgeneration hybrid optical communications”— small, lightweight devices for efficient light generation and transportation, enabling high speed and low power optical interconnects, which is an interface between electronic signals in computers and optical fiber communication signals.
In 2010, the pioneers of graphene research, located at the University of Manchester, won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Since then, “two-dimensional materials have been a hot area of research,” said Gu. Gu isn’t just making devices—she is testing them in order to improve speed, performance, and scalability of devices made with these materials. These could be the basis of nextgeneration optical interconnect systems in Air Force infrastructures, she said.
To build devices for optical communications, Gu first uses software to design the devices, optimizing their optical, electronic and thermal properties. Then, she works with the team at the UD Nanofabrication Facility to make the devices.
“Together we are doing very sharp engineering in combination with hot science,” said Gu. “This grant gives me more opportunity to tap the potential of my research.” Gu’s students will also benefit from this award.
An electrical engineering professor at the University of Delaware makes material fit for an interplanetary mission — take NASA’s word for it. Tingyi Gu, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received an Early Career Faculty (ECF) Award from NASA for her research using integrated photonic devices for low power space photonic communication and sensors for space weather observations. Gu is developing lightweight silicon photonic chips that can withstand harsh atmospheric conditions in space, monitor gamma ray and UV radiation, and send communication signals between space and the ground. “We have to sort of invent these nanoscale radiation-hardened building blocks from scratch, by incorporating new materials onto the silicon photonic platform” she said.
The devices start with silicon, a material commonly used in photonics. Then graphene, a two-dimensional material made from a single layer of atoms, is bonded onto silicon chips. Graphene can improve chip performance, including
“This is a wonderful opportunity for students to get trained to understand the process from beginning to end,” she said, “which is critical for their future careers.”
Gu isn’t just working with one NASA award. She is also collaborating with Prof. Bennett A. Maruca from the Physics and Astronomy department, under guidance of William H. Matthaeus, director of the Delaware Space Grant Consortium, on research being funded through NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) International Space Station (ISS) Flight Opportunity Cooperative. This will allow Gu to send her photonic devices to space in a launch within five years. Kenneth Barner, chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said: “Prof. Gu is a true innovator in nanofabrication, photonics, and devices. Her novel approaches will directly advance ground-to-space and space-to-ground Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering