Guanxiong Zhang

Guanxiong graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Optoelectronic Information Science and Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology in July 2020. His graduation project was the design of a carrier-modulated lidar system in autonomous driving. Guanxiong attended the summer session at Yale University in 2018 and was an innovation and incubation intern at Ericsson (China) Communications Co., Ltd in 2019. In October 2020, Guanxiong started his DPhil at the University of Oxford in the Soft Matter Photonics group supervised by Dr Stephen Morris and Prof. Steve Elston. Guanxiong is now conducting research on thin-film lasers. Outside of the lab, he enjoys playing the piano and making vlogs. Guanxiong is also a graduate student at Somerville College, Oxford.

Thin-film lasers and relevant technologies

Thin-film lasers with orbital angular momentum control

There is an increasing desire to develop light sources that have specific characteristics in terms of the orbital angular momentum of the emitted light, particularly for use in applications such as optical communications and quantum optics. To meet this need, the aim of this project is to develop a new breed of liquid crystal laser that can provide in-situ control of the orbital angular momentum of light. These lasers will be fabricated using sophisticated additive manufacturing techniques in the form of 3d laser and drop-on-demand printing to artificially sculpture advanced photonic structures into the liquid crystal medium. A variety of different photonic structures will be considered, and the best ones will be selected based upon the resulting Q-factor and losses. For the gain medium, the project will consider the use of nanocrystalline emitters that exhibit the generic perovskite structure. The project will include device design and fabrication through to testing and implementation in an application.

• The 8th National University Students' Opt-Sci-Tech Competition -- Second Prize
• Mathematical Contest in Modeling 2019 -- Meritorious Winner
• Mathematical Contest in Modeling 2018 -- Meritorious Winner
• China Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling -- Beijing First Prize
• Global Management Challenge -- Third Prize