Juejun Hu

About

Juejun Hu is the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. His research group develops novel materials and devices that harness light-matter interactions for a broad range of applications, including on-chip sensing and spectroscopy. His work leverages digital Fourier transform technology to build miniaturized, rugged sensors compatible with mass production for industrial process control, medical imaging, and space systems. A major focus of his research is on optical phase-change materials and meta-optics. These materials exhibit reversible changes in their optical properties during solid-state phase transitions, enabling the creation of reconfigurable optical devices that can be programmably adapted to specific functionalities. Additional research directions include flexible and polymer photonics for biomedical monitoring and high-speed data communications, advanced imaging and sensing optics for consumer and automotive electronics, and magneto-optical isolation. His group is also developing chip-scale nonreciprocal photonic devices functioning as one-way valves for light, which are crucial for next-generation optical communication and navigation systems.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Materials science
• Optoelectronics
• Nanotechnology
• Physics
• Optics
• Engineering physics
• Engineering
• Systems engineering
• Software engineering

Selected publications

• Electrically reconfigurable non-volatile metasurface using low-loss optical phase-change material

  Nature Nanotechnology · 2021 · 493 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Reconfigurable all-dielectric metalens with diffraction-limited performance

  Nature Communications · 2021 · 385 citations

  Active metasurfaces, whose optical properties can be modulated post-fabrication, have emerged as an intensively explored field in recent years. The efforts to date, however, still face major performance limitations in tuning range, optical quality, and efficiency, especially for non-mechanical actuation mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce an active metasurface platform combining phase tuning in the full 2π range and diffraction-limited performance using an all-dielectric, low-loss architectu…

  DOI

• Single-Element Diffraction-Limited Fisheye Metalens

  Nano Letters · 2020 · 233 citations

  Wide field-of-view (FOV) optical functionality is crucial for implementation of advanced imaging and image projection devices. Conventionally, wide FOV operation is attained with complicated assembly of multiple optical elements known as "fisheye lenses". Here we present a novel metalens design capable of performing diffraction-limited focusing and imaging over an unprecedented near 180° angular FOV. The lens is monolithically integrated on a one-piece flat substrate and involves only a single l…

  DOI

• Nanofabrication for Nanophotonics

  ACS Nano · 2025-03-28 · 92 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Nanofabrication, a pivotal technology at the intersection of nanoscale engineering and high-resolution patterning, has substantially advanced over recent decades. This technology enables the creation of nanopatterns on substrates crucial for developing nanophotonic devices and other applications in diverse fields including electronics and biosciences. Here, this mega-review comprehensively explores various facets of nanofabrication focusing on its application in nanophotonics. It delves into hig…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrated Photonics Packaging: Challenges and Opportunities

  ACS Photonics · 2022 · 87 citations

  Packaging of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) chips is an essential and critical step before they can be integrated into functional optoelectronic systems. Photonic packaging is however often a major barrier impeding scalable deployment of PIC technologies given its high cost and limited throughput. This perspective addresses the technical challenges and discusses promising strategies and research directions to overcome the “packaging bottleneck”.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Combinatorial solution processing of optical phase change materials

  NSF · $320k · 2022–2026

• Collaborative Research: Conformal and robust integrated infrared spectroscopic sensors

  NSF · $250k · 2017–2020

• Collaborative Research: FuSe: High-throughput Discovery of Phase Change Materials for Co-designed Electronic and Optical Computational Devices (PHACEO)

  NSF · $315k · 2023–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Anu Agarwal

  203 shared

• Kathleen Richardson

  190 shared

• Tian Gu

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  186 shared

• Lionel C. Kimerling

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  180 shared

• Hongtao Lin

  State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instruments

  127 shared

• Qingyang Du

  Zhejiang Lab

  92 shared

• Vivek Singh

  L V Prasad Eye Institute

  85 shared

• Mikhail Y. Shalaginov

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  81 shared

Labs

• Photonic Materials GroupPI

Education

• Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1999

• M.S., Materials Science and Engineering

  University of California, Berkeley

  1994

• B.S., Materials Science and Engineering

  University of Science and Technology of China

  1991

Awards & honors

• Vittorio Gottardi Prize, International Commission on Glass (…
• SPIE Early Career Achievement Award (2019)
• Robert L. Coble Award, American Ceramic Society (2017)
• Faculty Early Career Development Award, National Science Fou…