At the nanoscale, even tiny imperfections can disrupt the behavior of light, making it difficult to reliably reproduce a device\u2019s optical properties. Nanophotonics researcher Haoye Qin has demonstrated that carefully designed disorder can actually be a useful tool.<\/p>\n
In July, Qin joined Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School in China as an assistant professor, where he plans to continue exploring fundamental questions in topological nanophotonics while developing optical technologies that can function beyond the laboratory.<\/p>\n
Qin\u2019s research combines topology, singular optics, and nanostructures such as photonic crystals and metasurfaces to achieve precise control over light, with the aim of developing more efficient and tunable optical devices. He has also demonstrated new ways to tune polarization using twisted photonic crystal structures, engineer optical forces through topology, and control the polarization of exceptional points in non-Hermitian optical systems, making a broader range of polarization states possible in a single compact device.<\/p>\n
We spoke with Qin about his research, the promise of topological nanophotonics, and the challenges that remain.<\/p>\n
What does this recognition mean to you, both personally and professionally?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m very honored to receive the Nanophotonics Early Career Award. Personally, it is encouraging to know that the questions I have been working on are meaningful to the wider community. It also reflects the support of my mentors and the efforts of many collaborators and students, since none of this work was done alone.<\/p>\n
Professionally, the award comes at an important point in my career, as I am beginning to build my own research group. It gives me confidence not only to explore new fundamental physics, but also to think more seriously about how these ideas can move beyond the laboratory and become useful optical technologies.<\/p>\n
Could you briefly describe your research and the main problem you are trying to solve in nanophotonics?<\/p>\n
My research mainly focuses on controlling light with very small, carefully designed structures \u2014 particularly photonic crystals and metasurfaces. I use ideas from topology, singular optics, and non-Hermitian physics to control properties such as polarization, wavefront propagation direction, and optical force.<\/p>\n
The broader problem is how to achieve complex optical functions in devices that remain compact, efficient, and realistic to fabricate. Many interesting optical effects currently require complicated systems, precise alignment, or carefully controlled experimental conditions. I am interested in finding simpler structures in which the physics itself provides the required functionality. Ultimately, I want to help close the gap between demonstrating an interesting effect on an optical table and building a component that can be manufactured, integrated, and used in a practical system.<\/p>\n
Your work combines topology and singular optics with nanostructures such as photonic crystals and metasurfaces. For readers who may be unfamiliar with these concepts, what do they mean, and what can they help us achieve?<\/p>\n
Topology describes global features that cannot be removed by a small local change. A familiar analogy is the number of twists in a loop: the loop can be stretched or distorted, but the twist does not disappear unless the loop is cut. In optics, these features often appear around singularities \u2014 points where the optical intensity vanishes or where the phase or polarization becomes undefined.<\/p>\n
Although the singularity itself is only one point, it organizes the light around it in a very specific way. By embedding these properties in photonic crystals or metasurfaces, we can generate structured light, control polarization and directionality, and enhance light\u2013matter interactions. Because some of these responses are determined by the overall structure of the optical field, they can also reduce the dependence on precise alignment and tuning, which is important for taking such devices beyond carefully controlled laboratory conditions.<\/p>\n
Nanoscale optical devices can be very sensitive to imperfections in their fabrication. Your research has shown that carefully controlled disorder can actually help stabilize certain optical properties. How can disorder, which is normally considered a problem, become an advantage?<\/p>\n
I would not say that all disorder is helpful. Uncontrolled fabrication errors can certainly reduce device performance. The key is to distinguish unwanted disorder from disorder that is deliberately designed.<\/p>\n
In our work, we used variations in the orientation of nanoscale elements to create a geometric phase in real space. This allowed us to encode a vortex beam or a holographic image while preserving a topological singularity associated with a bound state in the continuum in momentum space. The two functions occupy different physical domains, so the added real-space complexity does not destroy the momentum-space topology. In this way, disorder becomes an additional design freedom and information carrier rather than simply a source of error. This separation of functions could also help make multifunctional devices more tolerant of alignment and fabrication variations when they are produced at a larger scale.<\/p>\n
One of your studies demonstrated that twisting a photonic crystal slab can produce arbitrarily polarized states. Why is this important?<\/p>\n
A bound state in the continuum, or BIC, is a state that is surrounded by radiating waves but remains confined because its radiation channels cancel each other. In conventional symmetric photonic crystal slabs, the polarization around a BIC is usually restricted to linear states.<\/p>\n
By twisting two layers relative to one another, we break the symmetry between the upward and downward directions and change the interference between radiation from the two layers. The relative twist and the phase accumulated through the structure allow us to continuously tune the polarization from linear to elliptical and circular states, including the handedness and orientation. In geometrical terms, we can cover the entire Poincar\u00e9 sphere, which represents all possible polarization states. Achieving this control in a compact patterned structure could eventually replace several separate polarization and beam-shaping components, making structured-light systems smaller and easier to integrate.<\/p>\n
You have also extended this work to metasurfaces containing exceptional points. What are exceptional points, and why are they interesting?<\/p>\n
An exceptional point occurs in an open optical system where two modes merge completely: they share not only the same resonance but also the same optical state. The response around this point has a distinctive topology and can change very strongly when the system is perturbed. Traditionally, the polarization at an exceptional point has been rather restricted, often to circular polarization with a fixed handedness.<\/p>\n
We showed that, by combining anisotropy, chirality, and radiative loss in a planar metasurface, the merged state can have any polarization on the Poincar\u00e9 sphere. This makes exceptional-point physics useful for a much broader range of input and output states. More importantly, for practical use, these functions can be realized in a single planar structure rather than through a complicated arrangement of optical elements. This could support compact devices for polarization control, optical multiplexing, sensing, and vectorial wavefront engineering.<\/p>\n
Your work has shown that optical forces can be shaped by topology rather than intensity alone. What could that enable?<\/p>\n
Optical forces are often understood in terms of intensity gradients: a particle is pulled toward or pushed away from a region of strong light. Near a BIC, however, we found that the force vector itself can form a vortex in momentum space. The topology determines how the force changes direction and where stable or unstable equilibrium points appear.<\/p>\n
Light intensity still matters\u2014the topology does not create force from nothing\u2014but it provides an additional way to organize and direct that force. By changing the structural symmetry, we can produce trapping, repulsion, rotation, and asymmetric three-dimensional confinement. In practice, this could be useful for manipulating and sorting nanoparticles, controlling microscopic fluid flow, and developing force-based sensors. If these functions can be integrated into compact photonic platforms, they could eventually be used in areas such as biomedical analysis, microfluidics, and precision manufacturing \u2014 without requiring a large and complex optical setup.<\/p>\n
Which future applications are you most excited about?<\/p>\n
I am particularly interested in structured-light generation and intelligent optical sensing.<\/p>\n
Structured light carries information not only in its intensity, but also in its phase, polarization and orbital angular momentum. By combining topological singularities with photonic crystals and metasurfaces, we can control several of these properties within a compact planar device. This could make structured-light sources smaller, more stable, and easier to integrate than systems that rely on several separate optical components. These advantages are essential if structured light is to move from laboratory demonstrations into practical imaging, communication, and sensing systems.<\/p>\n
For intelligent sensing, the longer-term goal is to let the nanostructure perform part of the information processing directly through its optical response. Instead of simply collecting an image and sending all the raw data to a computer, a device could selectively encode or extract features such as polarization, wavefront, and spatial information before detection. This may enable faster and more compact sensing systems with lower computational and energy requirements. In the long term, I hope such devices can generate, manipulate, and interpret complex optical information within the same integrated platform.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, what is the biggest challenge you would like to overcome in topological nanophotonics?<\/p>\n
The biggest challenge is moving from elegant physical demonstrations to complete systems that work reliably under realistic conditions.<\/p>\n
Topological protection is powerful, but it does not automatically solve problems such as material loss, limited bandwidth, finite device size, fabrication variation, or coupling to external sources and detectors. Addressing these practical issues is essential if topological nanophotonics is to go beyond the laboratory. I would like to develop topological nanophotonic devices that are not only robust but also efficient, tunable, manufacturable, and able to interact with their environment. Ultimately, I hope these technologies can combine structured-light generation, sensing, and optical information processing on the same compact platform \u2014 for example, a device that detects a complex optical signal, extracts the relevant information through its physical structure, and produces a useful output without relying on a large external optical or computing system.<\/p>\n
The Nanophotonics Early Career Award supports young scientists<\/a> by recognising the outstanding work of four individuals who have completed their PhD within the last five years and who have contributed significantly to progress in the field of nanophotonics or nano-optics. Winners were officially announced during the Nano Summit 2026 in Berlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the nanoscale, even tiny imperfections can disrupt the behavior of light, making it difficult to reliably reproduce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,267897,80],"class_list":["post-631153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nanophotonics","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}