Chih-Hao Chang
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Materials Science
What if a material could be built like a scaffold, with a repeating three-dimensional frame engineered at the nanometer scale? Such materials, called nanolattices, can combine properties that ordinary materials cannot.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
nanolattice
architected materials
metamaterials
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Establish scalable patterning processes to fabricate nanolattices and their nanoscale building blocks with precisely controlled geometry and material composition.
- Devise sensitive measurement techniques to characterize conductive and radiative heat transport in nanolattice structures designed for ultralow thermal conductivity and low solar absorption.
- Construct multiscale, multiphysics simulation models to predict the optical and thermal transport properties of nanolattice designs, including stacks with reflector layers.
- Optimize nanolattice architecture and composition to reach a refractive index below 1.2 while keeping stiffness above 10 GPa, for use in AR/VR optics.
- Develop high-yield processes to embed low-index nanolattices into photonic waveguides and demonstrate scaled-up manufacturing with industrial partners.
More about the research
One example is a material that is mostly empty space yet still stiff, or one that blocks heat extremely well while staying light. Both of the lab's projects design and manufacture nanolattices with controlled architecture and composition. One targets thermal insulation for clean-energy storage. The other targets optical materials for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) displays.
Why it matters
Lightweight nanolattice insulation could help store liquid hydrogen for hydrogen-powered vehicles, portable power and large-volume delivery. It could also enable long-duration storage of solar and industrial heat, supporting energy decarbonization. Stiff, ultralow-index nanolattices could make light-guiding chips in wearable AR/VR devices more efficient and robust, giving device makers a scalable material for next-generation headsets.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xinpeng Zhao
Michigan State University, MI·Materials Science
Establish how moisture changes heat flow in cellulose-based porous materials by making samples with controlled fiber sizes and pore structures and measuring their thermal conductivity across humidity levels.
Xianfan Xu
Purdue University, IN·Engineering
Develop theory for how radiative heat transport by hyperbolic phonon polaritons, light-lattice vibration waves, inside hyperbolic materials depends on wavelength and temperature.
Asegun Henry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA·Engineering
Advance understanding of phonon transport, the atomic vibrations that carry heat, in disordered materials whose atoms lack a regular repeating arrangement, using advanced computational approaches.
The school
University of Texas at Austin: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 871 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.