All clothing inherently captures heat radiation, creating a personal greenhouse effect that can be overly warm, especially during the summer months. We will discuss how we can control the thermal radiation from our body and the incoming solar radiation in the visible wavelength range by incorporating nanophotonic structures into textiles. Such textiles could regulate our thermal comfort much more efficiently than traditional fabrics. In turn, they can lead to significant energy savings in air-conditioning, and help shape a sustainable and energy-efficient future world.  

In the second topic, we will discuss topological insulating phases in nanophotonics. Topological protection is widely anticipated to provide robustness against fabrication disorder in classical and quantum devices. However, recent experimental studies highlight the continued requirement for precise fabrication. In some cases, even a small perturbation can lead to strong localization. Here, we theoretically show that each of the commonly studied topological photonic structures exhibits intrinsic limitations that contravene the expected topological robustness. We also discuss the inherent connections between these limitations and strategies for mitigation or leveraging them to our advantage.

Dr. Alex Y. Song is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and (by courtesy) the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Sydney. He conducted postdoctoral research in the E. L. Ginzton Laboratory and the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University. He completed his B.S. in Mathematics and Physics and M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University.