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illustration shows a layer of molybdenum disulfide on the left; on the right, the illustration shows a layer of tin selenide being laid on top of the layer of molybdenum disulfide.

Van der Waals Forces Can Play Unexpected Role in Thin Film Properties

Researchers have demonstrated the ability to use van der Waals forces to tune the physical and electronic properties of ferroelectric thin films.

L-R: Profs Martin Thuo, Bharat Gwalani, Yin Liu, and Ruijuan Xu

Meet Our New Faculty

The NC State University Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) is excited to welcome four new faculty members this fall. “We are proud to announce…

Spring blooms around the Memorial Belltower on an April afternoon. Photo by Becky Kirkland.

Faculty highlights

The latest awards and honors earned by faculty of the College of Engineering at NC State University.

diagram shows infrared light passing through an oxide membrane

Researchers Demonstrate New Way to ‘Squeeze’ Infrared Light

The thin-film membranes confine infrared light far better than bulk crystals, which are the established technology for infrared light confinement.

diagram shows how material 'squeezes' infrared light

Advances Bring Us Closer to New ‘Light-Squeezing’ Technologies

Researchers have improved upon techniques that use thin films to compress infrared light, demonstrating three advantages that make the films more useful for practical applications.

Prof. Yin Liu Wins NSF CAREER Award for Research in Materials Science

North Carolina State University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering is excited to announce Assistant Professor Yin Liu has been awarded the esteemed National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. This recognition comes as a testament to his innovative research in electronic and photonic materials and has far-reaching implications for the rapidly evolving fields of optics and nanotechnology.

Lab Updates

2025

  • May
  • April
    • Professor Liu visited the MSE program at the University of Florida and gave a seminar talk on the phonon polaritons in oxide membranes. Thank you to Professor Honggyu Kim for the kind invitation!
    • Konnor Koons received the Goodnight Doctoral Fellowship, a prestigious award awarded to Ph.D. students at NC State. Congratulations to Konnor!
    • Our collaborative paper titled “Room-temperature multiferroicity in sliding van der Waals semiconductors with sub-0.3 V switching” has been published in Nature Communications. 
  • February
    • Our paper on the anomalous thermal transport in Eshelby twisted van der Waals nanowires has been published in Nature Materials.  Congratulations!
  • January
    • Guanyue Chen joined the Liu Group as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!

2024

  • November
    • Professor Liu delivered a talk at the Applied Physics Seminar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Thank you, Professor Jinsong Huang, for the kind invitation!
  • September
    • Konnor presented his work at the MSE Department Excellence in Graduate Research Seminar
    • Our research on phonon polaritons in SrTiO3 membranes was featured by the Advanced Light Source
  • June
    • Our paper titled “Highly Confined Epsilon-Near-Zero and Surface Phonon Polaritons in SrTiO3 Membranes” has been published in Nature Communications. Congratulations!
    • Peter Wilson will work in the Liu lab for data REU research in the summer of 2024. Peter will develop a Python Package for the calculation of the reflection of multilayer stacks based on the transfer matrix method. Welcome!
  • February
  • January
    • Van Tu Vu, Ph.D., joined the Liu group as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome!

2023

  • October
    • A review paper contributed by Professor Liu and other collaborators has been accepted for publication in Chemical Reviews. Congratulations!
  • September
    • Ben Sheldon joined the Liu group as a REU student. Welcome!
  • June
    • Our STEM cathodoluminescence system has been installed on Titan TEM in AIF!
    • Congrats, Professor Liu and his collaborators, on the publication of “Controlling valley-specific light emission from monolayer MoS2 with achiral dielectric metasurfaces” in Nano Letters!
    • We are awarded the Faculty Research and Professional Development (FRPD) grant from NC State!
    • Konnor Koons joined Liu’s group as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!
  • January
    • Zisu Meng joined the Liu group as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome!

2022

  • October
    • Dean Peabody and Eli Howell joined the Liu group as REU students. Welcome!
    • Claire Carlin, Alan Dai, Briley Bourgeois, and Lin Yuan from Prof. Jennifer Dionne’s lab at Stanford visited the Liu lab.
  • August
    • Yueyin Wang joined the Liu group as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!
  • July
    • Professor Liu formally joined NC State!
    • Professor Liu’s collaborative work on epitaxial growth of helical van der Waals has been published in Nano Letters and selected as a journal cover!