Bo Zhao (赵博)

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Stanford University

Welcome to visit our group website.

(Short Bio) Bo Zhao received his Bachelor’s degree in Modern Mechanics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2011 with a best thesis award. Afterward, he joined Professor Zhuomin Zhang’s group in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and obtained his Ph.D. degree there in Dec. 2016. He is now working with Professor Shanhui Fan at Stanford University as a postdoctoral research associate.

Bo's research is related to thermal radiation, nanophotonics, energy conversion, electronics, plasmonics, 2D materials, and numerical design. He has given over twenty conference presentations and several invited talks. He received the best poster award in 2013 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. He is a reviewer for journals including Nature Communications, Nano Letters, Physical Review Letters, ACS Photonics, NPJ 2D Materials, Applied Physics Letters, Physical Review B, Physical Review Applied, Optics Express, Optics Letters, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Journal of Heat Transfer, and Journal of Applied Physics. He is a student member of ASME, SPIE, OSA, and APS.

What's New

  1. (2/24/2021) Paper on atomic-scale thermal radiation control accepted in ACS Photonics. [PDF]

  2. (2/22/2020) Paper on nonreciprocal thermal radiation of Weyl semimetals is accepted in Nano Letters. [PDF]

  3. (2/21/2020) I will be visiting University of Maryland and give a talk on thermal radiation control. [News Report]

  4. (2/14/2020) I am selected as a postdoc representative for our Photonics at Thermodynamic Limits Energy Frontier Research Center (PTL-EFRC) and will be travelling to DC. I will present a poster summarizing the research advances in our center on photonic thermodynamic systems from Prof. Harry Atwater's group (Caltech), Prof. Paul Braun's group (UIUC), Prof. Mark Brongersma's group (Stanford), Prof. Jennifer Dionne's group (Stanford), Prof. Prineha Narang's group (Harvard), Prof. Ralph Nuzzo's group (UIUC), Prof. Eli Yablonovitch's group (Caltech), and our group (Prof. Shanhui Fan at Stanford). [What is PTL?]

  5. (1/3/2020) We demonstrate a high-performance sub-wavelength passive optical isolator based on Weyl semimetals. [PDF]

  6. (12/31/2019) Happy new year!

  7. (11/18/2019) We demonstrate for the first time that topological materials could be used for nonreciprocal thermal radiation control. [PDF]

  8. (10/28/2019) Preparing to attend IMECE2019 at Salt Lake City, Utah. Look forward to meeting you there!
  9. (9/13/2019) I give an invited talk on chemical potential of photons for heat transfer applications in Prof. Arun Majumdar’s Group.

Research Highlights

  1. I proposed a nanophotonic design of nonreciprocal thermal emitters that, for the first time, enabled Kirchhoff’s-Law breaking with conventional permanent magnets. Related work published in [Optics Letters].

  2. My work on power-generation electronic circuit solved a 20-year-old problem about how to make thermophotonic systems self-sustaining. Related work published in [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences].

  3. I proposed a near-field thermophotonic system for low-grade waste heat recovery that outperforms the state-of-the-art near-field thermophotovoltaics in terms of power density. Related work published in [Nano Letters].

  4. My work on hBN-based broadband absorbers was selected as the cover article. Related work published in [Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering].

  5. My work on enhanced photon tunneling between graphene/hBN heterostructures was entitled the top six most-cited articles in ASME Journal of Heat Transfer in 2017. Related work published in [Journal of Heat Transfer].

  6. My experimental work on near-field heat transfer between flat doped-Si surfaces demonstrated a record-high super-Planckian radiative heat transfer rate. Related work published in [Applied Physics Letters].

  7. My work on graphene absorption enhancement was entitled the top downloads of the Optical Society (OSA) in June 2015. Related work published in [Journal of the Optical Society of America B] [Applied Physics Letters].

Education

Professional Experience