Invited Speakers

Kyunghwan Oh is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, and is currently affiliated with the Department of Physics at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan.

He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Physics from Seoul National University in 1986 and 1988, respectively. He then moved to the United States to pursue further studies at Brown University, where he obtained an M.S. in Engineering in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Optics in 1994.

Since completing his Ph.D., Prof. Oh has focused his research on fiber optics, optical materials, and lasers. Over the years, he has been affiliated with several world-renowned photonics research institutes, including Lucent Bell Labs (Murray Hill, USA), the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technology (Germany), the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton (UK), EPFL (Switzerland), and The University of Tokyo (Japan), among others.

He has authored and co-authored more than 250 SCI journal papers, holds seven U.S. patents, and has contributed to three books—including Silica Optical Fiber Technology (Wiley)—as well as four book chapters.

A Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), Prof. Oh has played an active role in the photonics community. He has served as a Topical Editor for Optics Letters, an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and Optical Fiber Technology (Elsevier), a member of the International Advisory Board for Optics Communications (Elsevier), and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of The Optical Society of Korea.

He has also contributed to organizing international conferences, serving as the Optical Fiber Technology Subcommittee Chair for the IEEE Photonics Society Annual Meeting and as a member of the International Steering Committee for CLEO-PR.

09/2022 – Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering & Department of Electronic Engineering
03/2013 – 08/2022 Assistant, Associate, Full Professor, Department of Physics & Department Energy Systems Research, Ajou University
03/2011 – 02/2013 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University (Advisor Prof. Fiorenzo G. Omenetto)
09/2010 – 02/2011 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University 03/2004 – 08/2010 Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University

Nanophotonic structures including photonic crystals and plasmonics have offered new ways to control photons at the nanoscale. However, it is still challenging to demonstrate nanophotonic devices using biomaterials such as silk protein since understanding optical properties and developing new nanofabrication are required. My team has reported various biomaterial-based photonic devices including color filters, random lasers, DFB lasers, flexible reflectors, and plasmonic resonators. Unique traits of the applied biomaterial can be utilized as new working principles of the nanophotonic devices. We are trying to pursue the dream for noble applications of artificial optical tissues, human-implantable biosensors, artificial eyes for soft-robots, and environment sensing.

Patterning technologies are essential to demonstrate electrical and optical devices. We have developed lithographic technologies on biomaterials including electron-beam lithography, ArF 193-nm deep UV lithography, and laser holographic lithography. Nano-patterns can be successfully generated and it is the first demonstration that proteins can be used as resists for lithographic processes. Additionally, to generate 3D artificial tissues, we have developed 3D printing technologies.

Bioinspired artificial electronic tissues are attractive for a wide range of applications, including implantable biomedical devices, healthcare monitoring, soft robotics, and artificial intelligence systems. Softness, deformability, and biocompatibility are highly desirable for seamless interfacing with biological tissues. This has led to an interest in biomaterial-based hydrogels because of their water-rich, soft-mechanical, and bio-friendly properties that resemble those of real biological tissues. Using biomaterials and biocompatible nanomaterials, we have demonstrated artificial electronic and optoelectronic tissues with functionalities of transparent soft-electrodes, tribo- and piezo-electronic energy harvesting, photodiodes, and neuromorphic devices. Our results open a new way to bridge the gap between physics and biology.

Dr Haug studied Physics at the Universities of Ulm (Germany) and Waikato (New Zealand) with a graduation project on gas-phase epitaxy of silicon. After that, he pursued a PhD program at ETH Zürich (Switzerland), studying Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells. After PostDoc positions at EMPA (Switzerland) and at the  Jülich Research Centre in Germany he became research group leader at the University of Neuchatel in 2005 and eventually at EPFL in 2009. His main research interests are optics, charge transport in semiconductors and renewable energy in general. His current work is devoted to passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells, using thin silicon films as contact layers.