Research interests
Dr Zhao's research revolves around materials. His deep interest here has been motivating his trainings and activities, which will continue to play as a main driver for his career.
His main focus looks at fundamentals and applications of nanoscale, amorphous and composite (often a hybrid of the two former ones) materials, in such as liquid and solid forms at various length scales. Broad topics of his study often invoke complementary collaborations, with the aim of pursuing its fullness as much as possible.
On the fundamental part, he has been endeavouring to quest for a deeper understanding of the physics and chemistry of the materials, aided primarily by a variety of spectroscopic techniques, based on active (e.g., luminescence) and passive (e.g., absorption and scattering) processes in a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, in tandem with classical, semiclassical or quantum approaches.
He has also been devoting considerable efforts to exploiting the applications of materials and of the new knowledge therein (e.g., light-matter interaction, radical reactions, dynamics of molecular and nanoscale objects), for such as functions engineering (e.g., about optically active nanoparticles, coloured glasses and nanoparticles-in-glass composites) and technologies development (e.g., in upconversion luminescence, glass mechanochemistry, optical biosensors), by which they have been or are being made practically useful in different ways.
Postgraduate supervision
Dr Zhao, as principal or associate advisor, has taken part in supervision of 6 PhD and 3 Masters (by research) students.
Please get in touch with him for higher degree research opportunities in areas of mutual interests.