Junqiao Wu holding a wafer with his reflection

Research Bio

The Wu group explores physics and applications of functional materials and semiconductors. Prof. Wu has published over 300 widely cited papers in the fields. For details of Prof. Wu's publications, please see Google Scholar. 

Professor Junqiao Wu received a B.S. from Fudan University and a M.S. from Peking University, China, both in physics. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Applied Science and Technology from the University of California, Berkeley for work on semiconductors. He did postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University on nanomaterials. He began his faculty appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. His honors include the 29th Ross N. Tucker Memorial Award, the U.C. Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship, the Berkeley Presidential Chair Fellowship, the US-NSF Career Award, the US-DOE Early Career Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from the White House, the Outstanding Alumni Award from Peking University China, the Bakar Faculty Fellows Award, elected Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS), and the John Bardeen Award from the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS). He is current on the Chair line of the Division of Materials Physics of the American Physical Society (APS), and is the Chair of the UC Berkeley Department of Materials Science and Engineering. 

Research Expertise and Interest

semiconductors, nanotechnology, energy materials, condensed matter physics and materials science

In the News

New Smart-Roof Coating Enables Year-Round Energy Savings

Scientists have developed an all-season smart-roof coating that keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer without consuming natural gas or electricity. Research findings reported in the journal Science point to a groundbreaking technology that outperforms commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings.

Researchers create surface coating that can create false infrared images

Light can sometimes play tricks on our eyes. If you look at a shiny surface, what you see will largely depend on the surrounding environment and lighting conditions. Berkeley researchers have now taken ocular distortion a step further, finding a way to imbed visual “decoys” into surfaces of objects in a way that can fool people into thinking they detect a specific image in the infrared that actually isn’t there.

Winner of campus’s new Bakar Prize hopes to harness sun’s power

A few years ago, Junqiao Wu, a UC Berkeley professor of material science and engineering, figured out how he could use thermal power to transform materials: roofs that adapt to temperatures and save energy, new types of sunglasses and even tools that could screen for cancer or monitor hidden defects in buildings.

Smart Materials: Getting the Sun to Pull Down the Shade

When a car seat heats up on a hot day, it just gets.... hot.  But some materials become totally transformed by the sun’s heat. They undergo a kind of Jekyll and Hyde reversal called a phase change. They turn from insulators to metals. Junqiao Wu is exploiting the most remarkable of these compounds, called vanadium dioxide, to devise ways to cool buildings, winter-proof car engines, and even create novel sunglasses.

President Obama Honors Outstanding Early-Career Scientists

President Obama named 102 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

A Micro-Muscular Break Through

Vanadium dioxide is poised to join the pantheon of superstars in the materials world. Already prized for its extraordinary ability to change size, shape and physical identity, vanadium dioxide can now add muscle power to its attributes.

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.
December 17, 2021

New smart roof coating may provide year-round energy savings, study finds

United Press International
Brian P. Dunleavy
An all-season "smart roof" coating keeps homes warm during the winter and cool during the summer, without using natural gas or electricity, a study published Thursday in the journal Science found. The technology, called temperature-adaptive radiative coating, outperformed currently available commercial cool-roof systems in energy savings in cities representing 15 different climate zones across the continental United States, the researchers said. With temperature-adaptive radiative coating installed, the average household in the United States could save up to 10 percent of electricity consumption annually, researchers said."Our all-season roof coating automatically switches from keeping you cool to warm, depending on outdoor air temperature," study co-author Junqiao Wu said. "This is energy-free, emission-free air conditioning and heating, all in one device, said Wu, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
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