Bolin Liao

Biography

Bolin Liao is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UCSB. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2016 and was a Kavli postdoc scholar at Caltech from 2016 to 2017. His current research focuses on the fundamental understanding of microscopic energy transport in emerging quantum materials and their potential application in next-generation energy systems. He is a recipient of early-career awards from DOE, NSF, ARO, and NASA.

Research

Bolin Liao's main research interest is in nanoscale energy transport and its application to sustainable energy technologies. Specifically, his research aims to understand the transport and interaction processes of fundamental energy carriers, such as electrons, phonons, photons, and magnons, at the smallest length and time scales, and then use the knowledge to develop more efficient clean energy devices, e.g. thermoelectric modules and photovoltaic cells. Current projects include first-principles and multiscale simulation of energy carrier transport, visualization of photophysics in space and time with scanning ultrafast electron microscopy, ultrafast optical techniques for thermal and thermoelectric characterization, and applied clean energy devices and systems.