Jie Yao | Research UC Berkeley

Research Bio

Yao Lab is focused on the design, fabrication and characterization of novel optical materials and explore their applications in various areas including nanophotonics, plasmonics, optoelectronics.

Research Expertise and Interest

optical materials, nanophotonics, optoelectronics, magnetic materials, ferroelectrics

In the News

Improving the World With Opto-Electronics

Jie Yao, a 2022 Heising-Simons Faculty Fellow, is developing new optical materials for use in information technology platforms and devices.

Using 3D STEM (scanning transmission electron microscope) tomography at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, Ting Xu and her team captured the precise placement of nanoparticles in a self-assembling material. (Courtesy of ACS Nano)

With a Little Help, New Optical Material Assembles Itself

A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has demonstrated tiny concentric nanocircles that self-assemble into an optical material with precision and efficiency.

A set of helical crystals against a dark background

Crystal with a twist: scientists grow spiraling new material

With a simple twist of the fingers, one can create a beautiful spiral from a deck of cards. In the same way, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have created new inorganic crystals made of stacks of atomically thin sheets that unexpectedly spiral like a nanoscale card deck.

“Editing” New Metamaterials Brings Light Into Focus

Jie Yao has developed a technique to readily change the structure of thin sheets of “metamaterials” so that they can focus light in an entirely new and commercially promising way.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.

November 3, 2021

2-D Room-Temperature Magnets Could Unlock Quantum Computing

Scientific American

Joanna Thompson

From computers to credit cards to cloud servers, today's technology relies on magnets to hold encoded data in place on a storage device. But a magnet's size limits storage capacity; even a paper-thin magnet takes up space that could be better used for encoding information. Now, for a study published in Nature Communications, researchers have engineered a magnet among the world's thinnesta flexible sheet of zinc oxide and cobalt just one atom thick. "That means we can store larger amounts of data using the same amount of materials," says University of California, Berkeley, engineer Jie Yao , the study's senior author.

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Teaching

Courses taught during the three most recent terms

2026 Spring

Individual Study or Research [AST 299]
Master of Engineering Capstone Project [ENGIN 296MB]
Supervised Independent Study [MATSCI 199]
Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research [MATSCI 298]
Individual Study or Research [MATSCI 299]
Properties of Materials [MATSCI 45]
Properties of Materials Laboratory [MATSCI 45L]
Properties of Materials Laboratory [MATSCI 45L]
Properties of Materials Laboratory [MATSCI 45L]
Honors Undergraduate Research [MATSCI H194]

2025 Fall

Individual Study or Research [AST 299]
Master of Engineering Capstone Project [ENGIN 296MA]
Supervised Independent Study [MATSCI 199]
Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research [MATSCI 298]
Individual Study or Research [MATSCI 299]
Honors Undergraduate Research [MATSCI H194]

2025 Summer

Individual Study or Research [MATSCI 299]

2025 Spring

Individual Study or Research [AST 299]
Master of Engineering Capstone Project [ENGIN 296MB]
Supervised Independent Study [MATSCI 199]
Optical Materials and Devices [MATSCI 218]
Group Studies, Seminars, or Group Research [MATSCI 298]
Individual Study or Research [MATSCI 299]
Honors Undergraduate Research [MATSCI H194]