Prof. Shuang Zhang, Chair Professor and Interim Head of the Department of Physics at the University of Hong Kong, visited IAPME and delivered an invited talk titled “Topological singularities under gauge fields in metamaterials” on 12 December 2024.
Prof. Zhang is a leading physicist in the field of metamaterials and nanophotonics. He is particularly interested in designing artificial photonic structures that can manipulate the propagation of light in ways that go beyond traditional optics. He was the recipient of IUPAP Young Scientist Award in Optics (2010), ERC consolidator grant (2015-2020), Royal Society Wolfson Research Award (2016-2021), and New Cornerstone Investigator program (2023-2028). He was elected OSA fellow in 2016, APS fellow in 2022, and has been on the list of highly cited researchers (by Clarviate) since 2018. During his academic career, Professor Zhang has published more than 200 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, with a total citation close to 48,000 (Google Scholar)
In the presentation, Prof. Zhang shared his recent research work on the topological photonics and metamaterials. After introducing the basic knowledge of topology in physics, he demonstrated various topological singularities, including Weyl points, Dirac points, Yang monopoles, and Berry dipoles, using metamaterials. He then particularly focus on the introduction of their interactions with artificially engineered gauge fields, facilitated by the flexibility in designing metamaterial properties.
