CenBRAIN NeurotechCenter of Excellence

First Annual Report

Sept. 2022 – Aug. 2023

01 Table of Contents

02 List of Personnels

03 Mission & Vision

04 Welcome Message

CENTER MEMBERS

06 PI Collaborators

16 External Collaborators

23 Research Professors & Postdoc Fellows

29 Ph.D. Students

34 Research Assistants & Admin Assistants

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

37 Samples of Programs and Projects

CONTRIBUTIONS

50 Publications

57 Patents

59 Keynote Speeches

61 Equipment

66 Financial Support

APPENDIX

72 Group Photos of Members’ Labs

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S1

PI Collaborators

Chair professors

06 Alexey Kavokin

07 Mohamad Sawan

Professors

08 Pavlos Savvidis

09 Yue Zhang

Associate Professors

10 Donglin Wang

Assistant Professors

11 Lan Li

12 Dianyi Liu

13 Jianhui Wang

14 Liaoyong Wen

15 Bowen Zhu

External Collaborators

Research Fellows & Professors

16 Chiye Li

16 Min Shang

17 Junhui Shi

17 Shi-Xin Tang

18 Congguo Yin

18 Shaomin Zhang

19 Xuan Zhang

19 Zhao Zhang

20 Bo Zhao

20 Ji Zhu

Associate Professors

21 Hanjun Jiang

21 Cheng Ma

Assistant Professor

22 Hemming Wu

Research Professors

Research Professors

23 Stella Kavokina

23 Guoguang Rong

Research Associate Professors

23 Sumin Bian

23 Evgeny Sedov

23 Chunlei Sun

23 Jie Yang

Research Assistant Professors

24 Matin Ashurov

24 Ioannis Balas

24 Lu Cao

24 Yun-Hsuan Chen

24 Dimitrios Karanikolopoulos

24 Changming Ke

25 Yangfan Lin

25 Shangke Lv

25 Ioannis Paschos

25 Alexandros Spiliotis

25 Maksym Stetsenko

25 Fateh Ullah

26 Zhenyu Wei

26 Linyi Yang

26 Xiangfei Yang

26 Xiaoqing Zhou

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 L I S T O F P E R S O N N E L S2

/ Mission

/ Vision

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M I S S I O N & V I S I O N

To design, implement and validate integrated circuits based

intelligent medical devices to recover vital functions for the

benefit of patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

To bridge nano/microelectronics in collaboration with

researchers form biology and medical sciences insuring

leading solutions to diagnosis, treatment and prediction of

healthcare conditions.

3

/ Founder and Director

Dr. Sawan received several national and international awards

such as the J.A. Bombardier Award, the Jacques-Rousseau

Award, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, the

Presidential Lebanese Medal, the Chinese Government

Friendship Award, and “Officer” of the National Order of

Quebec.

Director’s foreword

Being in Westlake University for almost 5 years, I had the

opportunity to tailor an up-front quality research lab, and to

interact and collaborate with many colleagues from various

disciplines from all 3 schools, and from external diverse

hospitals and medical institutions. Overall, I enjoy having my

career’s focus in multidisciplinary fields, and am placing high

priorities to disseminate and promote my group research

outcomes.

Motivated to bring CenBRAIN Neurotech to higher level where

the outcome from activities and events should be maximized.

Consequently, this annual report was born to improve the

interactions with all collaborators, needed to meet the

interdisciplinarity of research activities of all involved in this

annual report. It is then an honor for me to lead this Center, with

enthusiastic implication toward its multidisciplinary activities

and numerous challenges.

I would like to acknowledge with deepest thanks all colleagues

who have joined this annual report, and Westlake University for

the crucial collaborative conditions. Also, thanks are due to

Claire Zhang, Tiffany Tian, and Jane Zhang of my group for their

generous efforts, which have been tremendous to achieve this

annual report.

Mohamad SAWAN

Mohamad SAWAN

Ph.D., FRSC, FIEEE, FCAE, FEIC,

FAAIA.

Chair Professor in Westlake

University, Hangzhou, China;

Emeritus Professor in

Polytechnique Montreal, Quebec,

Canada;

Founder and director of the Centre

of Excellence in Biomedical

Research of Advanced Integratedon-chips Neurotechnologies

(CenBRAIN Neurotech) in

Westlake University.

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 WE L C OME MESSAGE4

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R SCENTER

MEMBERS

Please note that the members, who are part of this multidisciplinary Center, are placed in an alphabetical order

and in function of their academic status as follows:

[1]. Principal Investigators (PI’s): Chair Professors, Professors, Associate Professors, then Assistant Professors;

[2]. Research PhD Personnels : Research Professors, Research Associate Professors, and Research Assistant

Professors;

[3]. Postdoctoral Fellows;

[4]. PhD Students and other Research Assistants.

5

The Quantum Polaritonics Lab is designed as a world-leading

research group that combines the expertise and resources of two

major research groups: the Carbyne Laboratory, and the Theory

group. There are 9 members in my group, includes: 1 research

professor, 1 research associate professor, 2 research assistant

professors, 3 PhD students, and 2 administrative assistants.

Alexey Kavokin

Chair Professor in Westlake University

Founder and Co-Director of International Center for Polaritonics

Brief Description of Research Program

We shall study Tamm plasmon modes in metal-dielectric multilayer structures for their application biosensing. The modelling with use of the transfer matrix technique will be complemented with the analytical

description. Control measurements of photoluminescence and Raman scattering spectra will be realized.

The outcome of this research will help improving sensitivity of the optical bio-sensors.

Carbyne Chain

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S6

My group’s members count around 40 people and forming

three main teams: 1) System- on-chip based biomedical devices;

2) Biointerfaces and Biosensors, and 3) Neuroimaging for Brain

Diseases. Every team has a lead to co-supervise with me the

team activities. In addition to me, my group includes 5 research

professors, 5 Postdoctoral fellows, 15 Ph.D. Students, 5

research assistants, 4 main staff members to help managing

our center, and 4 visiting students.

Mohamad Sawan

Chair Professor in Westlake University

Founder and Director of Center of Excellence in Biomedical Research on Advances-on-Chips

Neurotechnologies (CenBRAIN Neurotech)

Brief Description of Research Program

We are building brain-computer interfaces forming closed-loop neuromodulators, to recover or enhance

human body functions. Intended for the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, these

devices integrate neurorecording and decoding blocks, detect biomarkers, and include artificial intelligence

methods to predict medical health conditions. Also, we are introducing neurotransmitters’ sensors, viruses’

detectors, and cells and organoids manipulators. The conducted projects are multidisciplinary involving

knowledges and knowhows from various sciences and engineering disciplines.

System on Chip RetinaSEE Optical Biosensor Chip

Manipulation of Neurons EEG & fNIRS Signal Recording Photoacoustic Imaging

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S7

Our research team is an international collaboration led by

Professor Pavlos Savvidis. We conduct experimental studies on

Quantum Optoelectronics. With backgrounds from multiple

disciplines, we bring diverse perspectives and expert skills to this

rapidly advancing field. Our team is composed of thirteen

members, Prof. Pavlos Savvidis, five assistant research

professors, five doctoral students and two administrative

assistants.

Pavlos Savvidis

Professor in Westlake University

Co-Director of the International Center for Polaritonics

Brief Description of Research Program

Our research activities are mainly focused on light mater interactions with special emphasis on low

dimensional semiconductor nanostructures including the design and realization of optoelectronic devices

based on fundamentally novel principles. The current research activities include: Polariton quantum fluids

and circuits, prototype polaritonic qubit utilizing persistent currents in annular ring condensates, polariton

condensate lattices for quantum simulation. Novel polariton based optoelectronic devices: laser diodes,

transistors, THz bolometers. Hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor microcavities.

Fig 1* Fig 2* Fig 3* Fig 4*

*Fig 1: Polariton condensate photoluminescence (red) trapped by a pump laser (blue)

*Fig 2: Interferometric image revealing the presence of a singularity associated with a vortex State

*Fig 3: Calculated phase mask for the creation of an optical lattice (left), lattice pattern created by the spatial light

modulator (right)

*Fig 4: Photoluminescence GaAs quantum wells doped with arbitrary He+ doping patterns

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S8

My group’s members count around 40 people. In addition to

me, my group includes 4 Postdoctoral fellows, 12 Ph.D. Students,

5 research assistants, and 10 visiting students. Our work can be

categorized into three tiers, whose main goal is to investigate

robust open domain human language understanding and

synthesis technologies and their downstream uses.

Yue Zhang

Professor in Westlake University

Director of Natural Language Processing Lab, Head of the Text Intelligence Lab

Brief Description of Research Program

My research interests include natural language processing and large language model, its underlying

machine learning algorithms, downstream applications. Our team works on machine learning and inference

algorithms for structural prediction, statistical parsing, Chinese syntactic processing, text generation,

machine translation, text summarization, dialogue system, information extraction, sentiment analysis and

financial market prediction.

Robotic Grasping

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S9

My group’s members count 38 people, our main research interests

include reinforcement learning, and embodied AI, aimed at

empowering robots to behave like humans. In addition to me,

my group includes 3 assistant research fellow, 1 Postdoctoral

fellows, 11 Ph.D. Students, 18 research assistants, 2 main staff

members to help managing our lab, and 2 visiting students.

Donglin Wang

Associate Professor in Westlake University

Founder and Director of Machine Intelligence Lab

Brief Description of Research Program

Based on deep reinforcement learning and embodied AI, my laboratory is mainly dedicated to investigate

the artificial general intelligence (AGI) for robotics, aiming to endow robots with behavioral flexibility, rapid

adaptability, and autonomous learning ability. We are building a behavioral trajectory centered large-scale

vision-language-action (VLA) model for the legged robot, by integrating the environmental dynamics and

expert demonstrations based on the paradigm of reinforcement learning. In addition, we are also exploring

the potential of brain-inspired neural networks in building machine intelligence and pursuing a more natural

and human-like motion intelligence ability for the legged robot.

Llama 2 based interactive robot arm

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S10

My group comprises approximately 15 members and is organized

into three main teams: 1) Integrated flexible, bendable and

stretchable photonic devices; 2) Hybrid integration of novel

materials for functional optoelectronics; 3) On-chip spectroscopy

and sensing. Apart from me, my group consists of one research

professor, eleven Ph.D. students, and two main research

assistants who assist in managing our lab.

Lan Li

Assistant Professor in Westlake University

PI of Flexible Integrated Photonics Lab

Brief Description of Research Program

We focus on the design and fabrication of novel micro/nanophotonic materials and devices on mechanically

flexible substrates as well as the application development of flexible/stretchable and novel integrated

photonic devices in the field of wearable sensing, on-chip spectroscopy, optical communication, and

biotechnology.

Fig 1: Flexible chip fabrication and test Fig 4: On-chip spectrometer

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R SFig 2: Flexible chip

Fig 3: Optical chip packaging

11

Our group currently has 15 members which includes 3 Postdoctoral

fellows, 10 Ph.D. students, 1 research assistant and a secretary to

help managing the lab. We are a diverse group of researchers with

expertise in various projects such as transparent solar cells,

artificial photosynthesis, electronic skin and wearable devices.

Our team is dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge

through innovative research and collaboration.

Dianyi Liu

Assistant Professor in Westlake University

PI of Advanced Optoelectronic Materials & Devices Lab

Brief Description of Research Program

Our research mainly focused on the photovoltaic materials and devices field in past years, including the

study on the fabrication process of transparent / flexible photovoltaic devices. We also tried to introduce

semiconductors into bacteria system to form the artificial photosynthetic platform. The future research

efforts of our group will be paid on the applications of optoelectronic semiconductor materials on energy,

environment, and life field.

Fig 1: Highly transparent TPVs Fig 2* Fig 3*

Fig 4: The watchband weaved with the FOSCs used to charge the smartwatch Fig 5*

*Fig 2: Photograph of TPV module with AVT of 80.6%

*Fig 3: The ultra-flexible TPV device when bent the wrist

*Fig 5: Intrinsically Stretchable Fiber-Shaped Organic Solar Cells

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S12

My group’s members count 16 people and forming two main

teams: 1) Secondary batteries and 2) fuel cells. In addition to me, my

group now includes 2 Research Assistant Professors, 8 Ph.D.

Students, 1 Research Assistant, 1 Administrative Assistant,

2 Undergraduate Students, and 2 Visiting Scholars.

Jianhui Wang

Assistant Professor in Westlake University

Director of Westlake Energy Storage Lab (WESL)

Brief Description of Research Program

Our society is facing increasing pressures from aggressive fossil fuel consumption and global environmental

pollution. Development of a green and sustainable energy system is an ultimate solution that can eliminate

fossil fuel reliance as well as the environmental pollution caused by using fossil fuels. At WESL, we aim to

develop next-generation energy-storage materials and technologies, such as high-energy, high-safety,

and/or affordable batteries and fuel cells and their corresponding key materials, via integrating the

knowledge and techniques in electrochemistry, catalysis, physical chemistry, and materials engineering.

Advanced Technologies

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S13

In addition to me, my group’s members count around 14 people,

including 2 postdoctoral fellows, 10 Ph.D. students, 1 visiting

student, and 1 administrative assistant. Our team is comprised of

individuals who are passionate about Intelligent AL-2D/3D

Lithography and Applications, and Laser Manufacturing Guided

Heterogeneous Materials and Applications.

Liaoyong Wen

Assistant Professor in Westlake University

PI of Multifunctional Nanostructured Devices Laboratory

Brief Description of Research Program

We are using intelligent imprinting and direct laser writing technologies as the main means to design and

manufacture new muti-scale 3D functional structures/materials, and to study different structural

units/materials at the macro-micro-nano scale synergistic coupling characteristics of components,

exploring their structure-activity relationship in (1) optoelectronic chips, (2) biosensor devices, (3) green

energy devices and system integration of new multifunctional/high-performance devices.

Aluminum-based 3DLithography

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S14

My group’s members count 14 people and forming three main

teams: 1) Metal oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs); 2) Skin-inspired

flexible pressure sensors, and 3) Soft electronic materials and

interfaces. Every team has a lead to co-supervise with me the team

activities. In addition to me, my group includes 1 Postdoctoral

fellow, 10 Ph.D. Students, 1 main staff member to help managing

our center, and 2 visiting students.

Bowen Zhu

Assistant Professor in Westlake University

Founder and Director of Flexible Electronics Lab

Brief Description of Research Program

The research in the Laboratory of Flexible Electronics in Westlake University is focused on developing highperformance flexible metal oxide thin-film transistors (TFTs) to construct active-matrix sensing arrays by

integrating TFT backpanel with physical sensors, biosensors, and displays. Flexible devices with disruptive

properties including transparency, lightweight, and ultrathin-thickness will be endeavored for emerging

applications in electronic skins and human-machine interfaces.

Wearable electronics

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S15

/ External Collaborators

Group Composition

In our team, I work together with a data processing engineer, a mechanical

engineer, and a visiting graduate student. The team endeavors to develop

novel imaging systems and physiological monitoring sensors, as well as the

algorithms for data analysis.

Research Program

Our research focus is to acquire essential physiological structures and

parameters by measuring biophotonic, ultrasound, and other multimodal

information, thereby enabling non-invasive and continuous measurement

and imaging for medical diagnosis and daily health monitoring. We have

developed microscopy and endoscopy systems that can perform

photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging simultaneously. Our technology is

used in biomedical applications including tumor imaging, cardiovascular

function assessment, etc.

Chiye Li

Research Fellow

Scientist at Institute for

Intelligent Sensing and

Perception, Zhejiang Lab

Group Composition

My group’s members count around seven people and forms one main teams:

Cardiac immune metabolism. In addition to me, my group includes one

research assistant professor, one post-doctoral scientists, three Ph.D.

students, two lab technicians (research assistants).

Research Program

My research is focusing on macrophage metabolism in the context of tissue

remodeling, to increase the knowledge of macrophage metabolism

controlling cell skewing and the significance of this process in inflammatoryrelated diseases. We showed the important role of metabolic competition

between macrophages and endothelial cells, during the stabilization of the

newly formed vascular branch. Furthermore, we unraveled a metabolitebased communication mode whereby macrophages influenced SC biology

and the response to muscle damage, identified a potential pharmacological

target for muscle regeneration upon damage, ischemia, and aging.

Thereafter, my team uncovers the effects of the immuno-microenvironment

in cardiac homeostasis and disease.

Min Shang

Professor

Sir Run Run Shaw

Hospital, School of

Medicine, Zhejiang

University

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S16

Group Composition

Our team primarily engages in research on ultrasound imaging and

photoacoustic imaging based on acoustic sensing. Currently, the entire team

consists of 23 members, including three Principal Investigators (PIs), seven

postdoctoral researchers, with the remainder being engineers and research

assistants.

Research Program

We primarily study the system technology of three-dimensional high-speed

photoacoustic tomography, and its applications in vascular, tumor, and brain

imaging. Simultaneously, we are also conducting research in high-frequency

ultrasound sensors, ultrasound sensor arrays, and ultrasound imaging.

Junhui Shi

Senior Research Fellow

Scientist at Institute for

Intelligent Sensing and

Perception, Zhejiang Lab

Group Composition

My group has 15 people and forms three main teams: 1) Molecular

transmission network analysis of infectious diseases; 2) Biosensors and

testing platform; and 3) Characterization of viral life cycle. In addition to me,

my group includes research professor, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. students,

and graduate students.

Research Program

We are focusing on the study of major infectious diseases, such as HIV-1 and

SARS-CoV-2 infections to conduct population-based and patient cohort

study in order to understand the dynamics and transmission network of

infectious diseases at the molecular levels; to investigate the association

between viral genome mutations and viral virulence and disease

progression; to develop novel biosensors and testing platform to improve

detection sensitivity and specificity of biomarkers. We are pursuing

collaborations with multidisciplinary scientists from various sciences and

engineering disciplines to initiate multi-dimensional research from

population, clinical study to experimental analysis.

Shi-Xin Tang

Professor

Professor of Department

of Epidemiology, School

of Public Health,

Southern Medical

University

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

17

Group Composition

At present, the department of Neurology has 91 beds and 51 medical staff.

Among the staff, there are 6 persons owning doctoral degree, 12 owning

master’s degree. A stroke unit and a specialized intensive care unit were

established. The intensive care unit has a total of 9 monitoring beds,

equipped with nurses 24 hours of supervision, the doctor is responsible for

the introduction of domestic advanced neurological monitoring system. Our

department also lead a research team focusing mainly on stroke, its

etiology, pathogenesis and exploring therapeutic methods to modify these

processes. Now there are seven medical students doing their master’s

degree in our team.

Research Program

- Clinical trial of stroke patients exploring the etiology, monitoring and

therapeutic targets

- Animal model of Intracranial atherosclerosis stenosis (ICAS)

- The role of hsa_circ_0003574 in intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis (ICAS)

- iPSC cell model of Parkinson’s disease

Congguo Yin

Professor

Chief of Department of

Neurology, Zhejiang

University School of

Medicine, Affiliated

Hangzhou First People’s

Hospital

Group Composition

My group is composed of 11 members and forms two main teams: 1) Invasive

brain-computer interface; 2) Neuromodulation. In addition to me, my group

includes six Ph.D. Students, two Mphil Students, one research assistant and

one visiting student.

Research Program

We are exploring the capability of the brain through brain-computer

interfaces and neuromodulation. For the brain-computer interface, our

group focuses on motor control and motor learning. For neuromodulation,

our research interests include mechanism exploration in animals and clinical

applications in neurological and psychological disorders.

Shaomin Zhang

Professor

Qiushi Academy for

Advanced Studies,

Zhejiang University

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

18

Group Composition

My group’s members count around 21 people and focus on three aspects: 1)

Large-scale synthesis of Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) ; 2) MOF thin

films and membrane, and 3) the applications of MOFs in battery, sensor

catalysis and separation. In addition to me, my group includes 3 Postdoctoral

fellows, 8 Ph.D. Students, 5 Master students, 2 research assistants, 1 main

staff member to help managing our center, and 1 visiting students.

Research Program

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of porous materials, which

exhibit promising properties for wide applications due to the high surface

area and porosity. We are aiming to promote the commercialization of

MOFs, mainly focus on developing the large-scale production process for

MOFs and commercial applications of MOFs (especially in the area of battery

and separation). Besides, we are exploring the molecule transport phenome

under the nanoconfined environment via MOFs as a toolbox.

Xuan Zhang

Professor

ZJU-Hangzhou Global

Scientific and

Technological Innovation

Center, Zhejiang

University

Group Composition

My group’s members count around 14 people and forms three main teams:

1) High-speed wireline transceiver IC design team; 2) High-performance

clock/frequency generation IC design team, and 3) Ultra-low voltage ultralow power IC design team. Every team has a lead to co- supervise with me

the team activities. In addition to me, my group includes 3 Ph.D. Students, 6

master Students, and 4 visiting students.

Research Program

We are building the high-speed energy-efficient data communication

interface for several applications, especially for the die-to-die

communication for the Chiplet and the co-package optics in the data

centers. Also, since the low-jitter clock/frequency generation is significant

for ultra-high speed communication, we also focus on the design of such

kinds of the ICs, such as the low-jitter low-power PLLs. In addition, based on

the research foundation of the PLLs and wireline transceivers, we also try to

reduce the voltage and power of the analog circuits, especially the

communication circuits for wireless sensor nodes, biomedical implants, etc.

Zhao Zhang

Professor

PI from Institute of

Semiconductors, Chinese

Academy of Sciences

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

19

Group Composition

Bo Zhao’s group was started up in 2018, which includes more than 20 PhD

and master students. In recent years, they have published a serial of papers

on ISSCC/JSSC, focusing on wireless IC designs for BCI, CGM, and IoT.

Research Program

Dr. Zhao Bo's research interests encompass a broad range of cutting-edge

areas, including miniature radios, wireless power transfer,

wearable/implantable radios, and CMOS RF/mixed-signal circuits. His work

involves developing compact and energy-efficient radio systems, exploring

wireless power transmission methods, developing new wearable and

implantable technologies for healthcare, and improving the performance of

integrated circuits.

Bo Zhao

Professor

Zhejiang University

Group Composition

My group’s members count around 20 people forms three main teams: 1)

Tumor chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy

research fields, 2) Construction of organoid research platform, 3) Multiomics analysis, artificial intelligence and other precision medicine fields.

In addition to me, my group includes 1 research assistant professor, 9

Postdoctoral fellows, 5 research assistants and 11 graduate Students.

Research Program

Our research program mainly includes tumor chemotherapy, radiotherapy,

targeted therapy and immunotherapy. we are building organoid research

platforms to achieve personalized precision medicine through in vitro drug

susceptibility testing, multi-omics analysis and artificial intelligence. Also,

we also focus on the mechanism of tumor damage caused by multiple beams

such as heavy ions, protons, boron neutrons, etc. By using the construction

of heavy ion biological effect model and other radiobiological related

research, we can provide treatment strategies for clinical diagnosis and

treatment.

Ji Zhu

Professor

Vice President and

Director of Ethics

Committee of Zhejiang

Cancer Hospital

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

20

Group Composition

My group is composed of 23 members. In addition to me, my group includes

2 senior researchers, 5 Ph.D. students, 9 master students, 1 research staff

and 5 research engineers.

Research Program

My group work on two major directions: 1) low power RF integrated circuits

design, including the RF IC techniques for short-range wireless connections

and quantum information systems; and 2) circuits and systems techniques

for medical and healthcare applications. For the latter, we work on:

1) miniature implantable devices, such as the implantable intracranial

pressure sensor, the implantable ECG sensor, the neural stimulators, etc.;

and 2) wearable devices such as hearing aids, bowel sound monitoring

patch, sEMG armband, etc.

Hanjun Jiang

Associate Professor

Vice Dean of School of

Integrated Circuits,

Tsinghua University

Group Composition

My group has 8 Ph.D. students and 6 master students, and a number of

college students.

Research Program

Delving into the cutting-edge realm of photoacoustic computed

tomography (PACT), our research unveils an extraordinary journey of

merging innovation with clinical excellence. With a paramount focus on

system development and groundbreaking algorithms, we pave the way for

revolutionary medical imaging applications. Embracing the power of light

and sound, our work aims to transform healthcare by providing noninvasive, high-resolution insights into tissues and diseases, empowering a

new era of precision diagnostics and personalized treatment.

Cheng Ma

Associate Professor

Department of Electronic

Engineering, Tsinghua

University

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

21

Group Composition

In our team, we have 2 postdoctoral researchers, 2 PhD, and 2 master

students.

Research Program

We stand at the forefront of research in neuromodulation, brain-computer

interface, and psychiatric disorders, and we aim to better understand and

treat neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, addiction, OCD, and

dementia.

We are a hybrid hospital-laboratory environment, where students will be

exposed to both basic science and clinical research settings. Students will

learn in both animal models and patients how neuromodulation is applied to

treat neuropsychiatric disorders. We are an electrophysiology lab by trade,

but we have an extensive set of tools, including optogenetics, calcium

imaging, and whole-genome sequencing, to help us tackle relevant

questions.

We believe in multidisciplinary approach and diversity, and we welcome

students with any background and training to join us. Self-motivated team

player is the only requirement (bookwarm, music lover, and cinephile is a

plus).

Hemmings Wu

Assistant Professor

Second Affiliated

Hospital, School of

Medicine, Zhejiang

University

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSExternal Collaborators (Continued)

22

/ Research Professors & Postdoc Fellows

Stella Kavokina

Research Professor

Laser physics and technology,

laser-matter interaction, noninvasive diagnostics of

nanomaterials, carbon

nanomaterials, thin film

deposition, semiconductor

nanoparticles and clusters

Supervised by A. Kavokin

Guoguang Rong

Research Professor

- Plasmons and polaritons for

nanoscale light-matter

interaction

- Optical biosensors for

pathogen detection

- Optical absorbers for

photodetector, solar cell and

energy harvest

Supervised by M. Sawan

Sumin Bian

Research Associate Professor

Integrating Optical Biosensor

with Organoids-on-chip and

Machine Learning for

Personalized Medicine

Supervised by M. Sawan

Evgeny Sedov

Research Associate Professor

Theoretical physics, spin-orbital

effects in polaritonic structures,

and theoretical justification and

numerical simulations to

experimental research

Supervised by A. Kavokin

Chunlei Sun

Research Associate Professor

Optical spectroscopy and

sensing based on the integrated

photonic platform

Supervised by L. Li

Jie Yang

Research Associate Professor

- Mixed-signal SoC for brainmachine interface

- Neuromorphic Hardware and

Computing

Supervised by M. Sawan

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S23

Matin Ashurov

Research Assistant Professor

Synthesis, Nanomaterials,

Photonic Crystals, Polymers,

and Sol-Gel Science

Photochemistry

Supervised by A. Kavokin

Ioannis Balas

Research Assistant Professor

Confinement and spin

manipulation of polariton

condensates for use in quantum

simulation and quantum

computing applications

Supervised by P. Savvidis

Lu Cao

Research Assistant Professor

- Artificial Intelligence

- Neural mechanisms of

pronunciation

- Neuro Decoding

Supervised by Y. Zhang

Yun-Hsuan Chen

Research Assistant Professor

Apply multimodal EEG-fNIRS

neuroimaging devices to

diagnose, early detect, and

predict brain diseases

Supervised by M. Sawan

Dimitrios

Karanikolopoulos

Research Assistant Professor

Demonstration of qubits in

polaritonic spin lattices for the

study of their coupled

interactions

Supervised by P. Savvidis

Changming Ke

Research Assistant Professor

First-principles theory and

molecular dynamics simulation

two-dimensional ferroelectrics

- Heterogeneous catalysis

design

- Li-battery electrolyte design

Supervised by J. Wang

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Professors &PostdocFellows(Continued)24

Yangfan Lin

Research Assistant Professor

Energy storage and conversion

- High-energy-density batteries

- Solvation structure of

electrolytes

- Electrode/electrolyte

interphase

Supervised by J. Wang

Shangke Lv

Research Assistant Professor

- AGI for robotics

- Robot motion control

- Reinforcement learning for

robotics

Supervised by D. Wang

Ioannis Paschos

Research Assistant Professor

Development and fabrication of

hybrid organic/inorganic

polariton microcavity devices

showing strong -coupling and

lasing at room temperature

Supervised by P. Savvidis

Alexandros

Spiliotis

Research Assistant Professor

Development of single-photon

emitters from trapped polariton

condensates formed in GaAs

microcavities

Supervised by P. Savvidis

Maksym

Stetsenko

Research Assistant Professor

Perovskite nanophotonics, 2D

materials, Plasmonics, Microand nanofabrication of coatings

and thin films, SERS and the

influence of electron beam

irradiation on 2D materials

Supervised by A. Kavokin

Fateh Ullah

Research Assistant Professor

Engineering Novel Materials for

Neuromorphic Computing and

Beyond

Supervised by M. Sawan

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Professors &PostdocFellows(Continued)25

Zhenyu Wei

Research Assistant Professor

- Robot system

- Reinforcement learning

- LLM for robotics

Supervised by D. Wang

Linyi Yang

Research Assistant Professor

- Causality-enhanced Natural

Language Processing

- Explainable and Generalizable

Natural Language Processing

- Data-centric AI and

Trustworthy AI

Supervised by Y. Zhang

Xiangfei Yang

Research Assistant Professor

- Brain-inspired reinforcement

learning

- Spiking neural network

- Brain-inspired intelligence

algorithms for robotics

Supervised by D. Wang

Xiaoqing Zhou

Research Assistant Professor

Study the light-matter

interaction, such as nonlinearity

and bounded states, with novel

materials housed in

microcavities

Supervised by P. Savvidis

Mohamad Bahri

Postdoc Fellow

DNA-Coupled AuNPs@CuMOF

for lung cancer biomarkers

detection

Supervised by M. Sawan

Salah Ud Din

Postdoc Fellow

AL-3Dlitho technique, Flexible

and Wearable Bio Sensors

Supervised by L. Wen

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Professors &PostdocFellows(Continued)26

Razieh Eskandari

Postdoc Fellow

Implementation of wireless

ultra-wideband (UWB)

transceiver for medical devices

with high data-rate and high

energy efficiency requirements

Supervised by M. Sawan

Zina Fredj

Postdoc Fellow

Electrochemical Aptasensor

based on metal-organic

framework for simultaneous

neurotransmitters monitoring

Supervised by M. Sawan

Yingjie Li

Postdoc Fellow

- Social Opinion Mining

- Open-Domain Information

Extraction

- Low-Resource Natural

Language Processing

Supervised by Y. Zhang

Fahimeh Marvi

Postdoc Fellow

Optical biomicroelectromechanical sensors

for the detection of early

biomarkers in Alzheimer’s

disease diagnosis

Supervised by M. Sawan

Jingxia Qian

Postdoc Fellow

Artificial leave: organic

photovoltaics drive water

splitting to produce hydrogen

Supervised by D. Liu

Wei Shao

Postdoc Fellow

Organic semiconductors for

phototheranostics and

optoelectronic devices

Supervised by D. Liu

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Professors &PostdocFellows(Continued)27

Zhitao Wang

Postdoc Fellow

- Research in the field of robot

perception

- Improving model

generalization via meta

learning

- Implementation in the field of

AGI for robotics

Supervised by D. Wang

Yuchen Xu

Postdoc Fellow

Closed-loop neuromodulation

in stroke rehabilitation and

brain organoids

Supervised by M. Sawan

Huanming Zhang

Postdoc Fellow

AL-3Dlitho technique, and High

density 1T1R devices

Supervised by L. Wen

Zhongfang

Zhang

Postdoc Fellow

Development and application of

novel optoelectronic

neuromorphic device and array

Supervised by B. Zhu

Qiji Zhou

Postdoc Fellow

- Automatic AI for Science

- Open-domain and Biomedicaldomain Information Extraction

- Large Language Model for

Natural Language

Understanding

Supervised by Y. Zhang

Yibin Zhou

Postdoc Fellow

Synthesis and construction of

high-performance small

molecule organic solar cells

Supervised by D. Liu

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Professors &PostdocFellows(Continued)28

/ Ph.D. Students

Name Supervisor Project Title Date

Syed Abubakar H. Jiang Ultra-low-power ECG classifiers 09/2018

Guangsheng Bao Y. Zhang Machine translation 09/2022

Kangjian Bao L. Li Photoacoustic/Ultrasound sensing based on

integrated photonics 09/2021

Junhui Cao A. Kavokin Topological protection of optical Tamm state 09/2019

Chengpeng Chai M. Sawan Sensor fusion & Photoacoustic imaging 08/2023

Jingyu Chang D. Liu Stretchable organic photovoltaics 09/2023

Boyang Chen J. Wang High voltage batteries 09/2021

Jinbo Chen M. Sawan Neuromorphic implantable wireless BrainComputer Interface 08/2020

Xinyu Chen A. Kavokin TBD 09/2023

Yitong Chen B. Zhu Two-dimensional ferroelectric semiconductor fieldeffect transistor 09/2020

Yulong Chen Y. Zhang Conversation Summarization 09/2019

Yuwen Chen C. Ma 3D photoacoustic mesoscopic imaging 09/2018

Zetao Chen S. Tang Role of two unique p6Gag mutations derived from

HIV-1 CRF07_BC-infected patients 09/2018

Zhen Cui P. Savvidis Strong coupling of light and matter in MicrocavityPolariton 09/2020

Zhihao Dai J. Zhu Multi-omics analysis 09/2022

Handi Deng C. Ma Photoacoustic clinical imaging 09/2020

Huitong Deng D. Liu Tandem organic photovoltaics 09/2021

Kexin Deng C. Ma Photoacoustic image reconstruction 09/2018

Qingyan Deng L. Li Waveguide-integrated photodetector 09/2023

Pengxiang Ding D. Wang Multimodal and Large Model 09/2023

Xiaoman Fan S. Zhang Brain organoids developments in motor cortex 09/2021

Chaoming Fang M. Sawan Neuromorphic chip design 06/2021

Tao Feng S. Zhang Modulation effect of transcranial electrical

stimulation on the cerebral cortex 09/2022

Sibo Gai D. Wang Reinforcement Learning 09/2017

Qingzhu Gao S. Zhang Cerebral Cortex Decoding in mice 09/2023

Wenyang Gao Y. Zhang Semantics & NLG 09/2022

Xurong Gao M. Sawan Microstate Analysis 08/2023

Yize Gao C. Ma Photoacoustic endoscopic imaging 09/2021

Xingnan Ge J. Zhu Immunotherapy 09/2022

CenBRAIN Neurotech

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Joris Barrat Gilbert P. Savvidis Experimental demonstration of a Polariton based

Qubit 09/2021

Fang Guo Y. Zhang Text mining & AI for science 09/2021

Wei Guo Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Anodic deposition of MOFs 09/2019

Jing He L. Wen Optics and photonics, Metasurface, Nanophotonics 09/2023

Xiaofeng He S. Tang

Evaluation of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine against

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant 09/2021

Chuanyu Hou J. Wang Aqueous batteries 09/2023

Suhan Hu C. Ma Fast in vivo histological imaging 09/2018

Chengchen Huang M. Shang The role of the macrophage in myocardial infarction 09/2021

Chenyi Huang J. Zhu Immunotherapy research 09/2021

Wenqiang Huang H. Jiang Cryogenic CMOS design 09/2020

Jialing Jian L. Li Flexible integrated modulator based on plasmonic

structures

09/2020

Qingyu Jiang J. Zhu Clinical radiotherapy 09/2022

Ran Jin B. Zhu Stretchable luminescence device based on gold

nanowires 09/2022

Yongzhen Jin J. Wang Electrocatalysis for fuel cells 09/2019

Yuzhao Jin J. Zhu Radiation physics 09/2022

Min Kang S. Tang

Evaluation of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine against

SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant infection 09/2019

Yachen Kang D. Wang Reinforcement Learning 09/2018

Mostafa Katebi M. Sawan Design and fabrication of the neuro-stimulator 04/2023

Xiangjian Kong Z. Zhang Ultra-low phase noise VCO 09/2020

Chaojie Lai M. Shang The important role of immunometabolism in sepsisinduced cardiomyopathy 09/2022

Yaoyu Li H. Jiang Short-range transceiver for body-area connection 09/2019

Dingwei Li B. Zhu Organic-Inorganic hybrid phototransistors for

optoelectronic applications 09/2020

Fanfan Li B. Zhu Artificial sensory neuron based on Mott memristor 09/2022

Hongju Li J. Wang Flow batteries 09/2020

Jiye Li L. Wen AAO template technique, Supercapacitor 09/2021

Mingkang Li S. Zhang Calcium Imaging 09/2018

Yafu Li Y. Zhang Natural language generation 09/2020

Zongxi Li L. Li Flexible integrated photonics 3D sensors and

applications 09/2023

Yuanhao Liang S. Tang New testing assays for major infectious diseases 09/2020

Guolei Liu B. Zhu Mott memristors and their applications in

neuromorphic computing system 09/2020

Hanmeng Liu Y. Zhang Logical Reasoning 09/2018

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSPh.D. Students (Continued)

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Huiling Liu Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang MOF based solid electrolyte 09/2020

Lei Liu J. Wang High energy density batteries 09/2019

Xiangji Liu X. Zhang Large-scale synthesis of MOFs 09/2023

Xing Liu M. Sawan Contribution to a power management integrated

circuit 10/2021

Yang Liu J. Wang Electrocatalysis for fuel cells 09/2020

Yu Liu X. Zhang MOFs thin films and MOFs membrane 09/2023

Jinxin Liu D. Wang Reinforcement Learning 09/2019

Yan Luo C. Ma Photoacoustic molecular imaging 09/2023

Yun Luo Y. Zhang Opinion mining 09/2020

Shengping Lv H. Jiang Biopotential acquisition circuits 09/2022

Jiayi Mao B. Zhu Event driven vision sensor based on Mott memristor 09/2023

Ruiqian Meng D. Liu Transparent photovoltaics 09/2020

Qingkai Min Y. Zhang Information extraction 09/2021

Dangwu Ni L. Wen AAO technique,3D nanotransistor, and

Nanophotonic 09/2024

Meng Niu P. Savvidis Polariton in magnetic field 09/2021

Wen Ou D. Liu Semiconductors for neuron activation 09/2023

Hongwei Pan Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang MOF/polymer composite materials for battery 09/2023

Xinhe Peng J. Zhu Basic tumor mechanism research 09/2022

Xiao Qin P. Savvidis Spin Lattice 09/2022

Huihui Ren B. Zhu Interface engineering of metal-oxide field-effect

transistor-based biosensors 09/2020

Ziqiu Shao A. Kavokin Quantum statistics of polariton condensates in the

weak lasing regime 09/2021

Xinyu Shen Z. Zhang Ultra-low-jitter fractional-N PLL 09/2019

Ziyang Shen M. Sawan Neuromorphic algorithm & Hardware exploration 08/2021

Diyuan Shi D. Wang Skill Graph 09/2023

Yilin Shi L. Li Investigations on mechanically flexible meta lens 09/2020

Jingwei Shui S. Tang Epidemiology of Chlamydia trachomatis in natural

communities in Hebei 09/2019

Yinyin Song D. Liu Transparent photodetectors 09/2019

Yi Su M. Sawan Biosensing Markers to Validate Diseases 04/2019

Boshu Sun L. Li Nanophotonic for optical sensing and

communication 09/2022

Jiacheng Sun L. Wen Nanofabrication, Nanophotonic, and Metasurface 09/2021

Pingping Tan Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis 09/2023

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSPh.D. Students (Continued)

31

Renjie Tang L. Li On-chip light sources based on solution-processable

optical gain materials 09/2020

Yiheng Tang L. Li Multifunctional and flexible waveguide-integrated

nano-optogenetic probes 09/2023

Yingjie Tang B. Zhu Flexible active-matrix sensing systems based on

metal oxide thin-film transistors 09/2021

Chuanqing Wang M. Sawan StimSEE a processing framework for retinal

prostheses 07/2019

Cunxiang Wang Y. Zhang Open QA & Hallucinations in LLM 09/2019

Dong Wang J. Zhu Clinical tumor radiotherapy 09/2022

Junzhe Wang M. Sawan Algorithm and Hardware Design for Closed-loop

Neurostimulation Systems 10/2021

Lang Wang L. Wen Multiscale 3Dlithography, Flexible sensors 09/2022

Qinan Wang D. Liu Transparent organic photovoltaics 09/2022

Ruofan Wang C. Li Photoacoustic image reconstruction, AI-based data

analysis 09/2021

Tingting Wang S. Tang

Schematic colorimetric assay using gold

nanoparticles 09/2023

Yan Wang B. Zhu Metal oxide semiconductor heterostructure based

optoelectronic synaptic transistors 09/2021

Yanlin Wang J. Zhu Targeted therapy 09/2022

Yiting Wang L. Li 2D or 3D flexible integrated optical devices for

multi-field sensing 09/2023

Zhichen Wang L. Wen BIC nanophotonic, Nanotransistor 09/2020

Na Wen D. Liu Artificial photosynthesis 09/2020

Chenbo Wu L. Wen Flexible sensor, Integrated circuit 09/2022

Chuhua Wu C. Ma Multi-physics imaging 09/2022

Di Wu M. Sawan Hardware-friendly transfer learning 09/2020

Hui Wu M. Sawan Neural recording front-end circuit design 04/2021

Nan Wu H. Jiang ULP acoustic signal processing ASIC 09/2021

Yingchun Wu L. Li

Integrated flexible photonic devices and their

application for optogenetic simulation, physical and

chemical sensing

09/2022

Fen Xia M. Sawan Hypoglossal nerve stimulator 08/2019

Sijie Xie Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Cathodic deposition of MOFs for separation 09/2019

Shengkun Xu J. Zhu Basic tumor mechanism research 09/2021

Yankun Xu M. Sawan Video-based seizure detection 09/2020

Ye Xu C. Li Opto-mechanical design, hardware development 09/2022

ZhenHong Xue Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Akaline electrolytic water Electrolysis 09/2021

Jianhao Yan Y. Zhang Natural language generation 09/2022

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Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSPh.D. Students (Continued)

32

Sisi Yan L. Wen AL-3Dlitho technique, metamaterials and SERS 09/2020

Xi Yang M. Sawan Photoacoustic Imaging 08/2019

Zhengyin Yang P. Savvidis Cascade correlation 09/2022

Zijie Yang Y. Zhang,

T. Xu

AI empowering the modernization of traditional

Chinese medicine and pharmacy 09/2021

Yuting Ye L. Li Flexible photodetector arrays for image sensing 09/2020

Yongjing Yin Y. Zhang Compositional Generalization 09/2020

Haiyang Yu J. Wang Flow batteries 09/2023

Yihan Yu B. Zhu TFT 09/2023

Fan Zhang S. Zhang,

S. Dong Flexible electronic and multimodal neural interface 09/2019

Han Zhang J. Wang Electrolyte solution structure 09/2018

Hongbo Zhang Y. Zhang,

L. Yang Large language model 09/2023

Hongyong Zhang M. Sawan Network of neurons on MEA 08/2020

Min Zhang D. Wang Computer Vision 09/2020

Xueliang Zhang Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Halogen-enabled rechargeable batteries 09/2022

Yuyu Zhang L. Wen AAO technique, Micro/nano fabrication,

Semiconductor devices 09/2023

Zhaoyu Zhang Z. Zhang Over-100-Gb/s SerDes Rx Design 09/2020

Hongyin Zhang D. Wang Robot Algorithms 09/2022

Chen Zhao L. Wen 3D Micro/nanoimprinting, Photodetector, and

Nanophotonic 09/2022

Guanlei Zhao D. Liu Encapsulation of organic photovoltaics 09/2023

Shiqi Zhao M. Sawan Energy-efficient biomedical digital accelerator 08/2019

Han Zhao D. Wang Robot Algorithms 09/2023

Tianyu Zheng S. Zhang Neural Coding 09/2021

Yuqiao Zheng M. Sawan Microcavity biosensor 09/2020

Zida Zheng D. Liu Organic optoelectronics 09/2023

Kangqi Zhou C. Li Noncontact physiological monitoring based on

tissue modeling 09/2022

Zhenyu Zhou Y. Jiang,

X. Zhang Flexible fiber battery 09/2021

Zibo Zhou D. Liu Organic semiconductors 09/2022

Ziqian Zhou L. Wen Electrocatalysis and Biosensor 09/2023

Minjun Zhu Y. Zhang Hallucinations in large language model 09/2023

Zifeng Zhuang D. Wang Reinforcement Learning 09/2021

Wenjun Zou M. Sawan Analog Design Practice and Wireless Data

Transmission 10/2022

Hongzhi Zuo C. Ma Multispectral photoacoustic imaging 09/2019

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSPh.D. Students (Continued)

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/ Research Assistants & Admin Assistants

Name Supervisor Project Title Date

Can Cui D. Wang Research on multimodal learning algorithms 2023

Mengjie Fang D. Wang Procurement of laboratory consumables 2022

Qingyuan Feng A. Kavokin Lab operation 2022

Wanqiang Gu D. Wang Mechanical structure engineer 2021

Peiming Guo Y. Zhang Parsing research project 2023

Xinghong Guo D. Wang Stable diffusion model and robot 2023

Qiming Hou M. Sawan Developing boards for test and demo 2021

Yu Huang P. Savvidis Management of center’s activities 2020

Kun Jiang L. Li Micro/nano-optical devices 2023

Xin Lang D. Wang Reinforcement learning for robotics 2023

Jun Li D. Wang Reinforcement learning and robot 2023

Siyu Lin M. Sawan Testing and characterizing circuits and systems 2021

Yanghui Lin A. Kavokin General management 2019

Boyan Liu D. Liu Management of lab’s activities 2022

Panzhong Lu Y. Zhang Digital human research project 2023

Yingpeng Ma Y. Zhang Causality research project 2022

Liyue Meng J. Wang Management 2023

Yating Pan L. Li Semiconductor processes 2022

Xin Qian D. Wang Responsible for recruitment work 2023

Ze Qiao D. Liu Organic synthesis 2022

Yuanyuan Qu D. Wang Software engineer 2018

Yuchen Sang M. Sawan IT support 2021

Jian Song D. Wang Brain-inspired reinforcement learning 2022

Xixi Song M. Sawan Silica biofunctionalization 2021

Ying Tao M. Sawan Protein and antibody determination 2020

Fangyuan Tian M. Sawan Management of Lab’s publicity affairs 2022

Xiaomeng Tian J. Wang Aqueous batteries 2023

Guihua Wan S. Zhang Experiments assistants 2016

Dongyue Wang D. Wang Software engineer 2022

Keyi Wang B. Zhu Management of lab’s activities 2021

Pengbo Wang M. Sawan Maintain cells and culture lung organoid 2021

Yidong Wang Y. Zhang LLM research project 2022

Weiming Wei L. Wen Lab manager 2021

Yukun Wu D. Wang Reinforcement learning and robot 2023

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 M E M B E R S34

Wenjing Xia D. Wang Management of lab’s activities 2021

Ce Xu P. Savvidis Management of center’s activities 2022

Jiawen Xu Y. Zhang Administration assistant 2023

Zhixiang Xu D. Wang Embedded hardware engineer 2021

Ningxi Yang D. Wang Multimodal and large model 2023

Peng Ying D. Wang Multimodal and large model 2023

Jiaqi Yu D. Wang Mechanical structure engineer 2021

Shuibai Zhang Y. Zhang OOD research project 2023

Shuyun Zhang M. Sawan Management of lab’s clerical and post-purchasing task 2023

Ting Zhang J. Wang Electrocatalysis for fuel cells 2022

Yitian Zhang M. Sawan Management of lab’s finance and human resources 2019

Haoyan Zhang D. Wang Pareto multi-objective reinforcement learning 2022

Zhimin Zhang D. Wang Embedded software engineer 2021

Ziqi Zhang D. Wang Reinforcement learning 2022

Wenyao Zheng M. Sawan EEG & fNIRS experiments 2021

Huaicheng Zhou D. Wang Reinforcement learning 2023

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 ME MB E RSResearch Assistants &AdminAssistants(Continued)35

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E A R C H A C T I V I T I E S

RESEARCH

ACTIVITIES

36

/ Advanced Optoelectronic Materials & Devices

Our research is focusing on the development of highly transparent efficient TPVs. By balancing efficiency

and transparency, the average visible transmission (AVT) can achieve up to 85% which exceeds the

transparency of the double-glazed glass in the buildings.

Meanwhile, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) can achieve over 5% (the theoretical value is ~ 11% when

considering all reasonable optical losses). The flexible property of the devices is also be considered in the

research.

Artificial Photosynthesis Research

Our team systematically investigated the relationship between the transparency of the device and the

photovoltaic performance, taking the known organic semiconductor active layer material as an example.

By controlling the film thickness of the absorbent layer, the AVT value of the device can be accurately

controlled in the range of 40%-85%. When the AVT value of the device is 70% and 80%, the efficiency of the

TPV device can reach 4.06% and 2.38%, respectively. This efficiency is the highest reported to date in the

field of high illuminance TPV (AVT>70%).

Film optical properties

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E A R C H A C T I V I T I E S37

/ CenBRAIN Neurotech

We are focusing on diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. We are building brain-machine

interfaces forming closed-loop neuromodulators, to recover or enhance human body functions) integrating

artificial intelligence methods to record neural activities, decode and detect biomarkers, as well as to predict

medical health conditions. Also, we are culturing cells and introducing various biosensors for

neurotransmitters manipulation and characterization, and viruses detection. We are leading several

projects supported by startup research budget, and other internal, provincial and national grants. The

conducted projects are multidisciplinary involving signal processing, integrated circuits, microfluidics,

microfabrication, nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, wireless communication, microsystem integration,

assembly, and packaging.

Protein Analyzing Chip Testing Women in Science

Organoid Culturing Set-up Photoacoustic Imaging Optical biosensors on wafer after dicing

 We, members of the CenBRAIN Neurotech Center of Excellence at School of Engineering of Westlake

University, recently launched our center-level seminar series, CenBRAIN Neurotech Leading Lecture

Series (CELLS). CELLS aims to establish a platform to foster intellectual discussion. CELLS is being held

on Tuesdays, with school of engineering wide audience. The speakers are invited to join on Monday (if

convenient). The invited lecture is 45 min presentation + up to 45 min discussion.

Prof. Moncef Gabbouj, Tampere University Prof. Yong Lian, York University Prof. Jerald Yoo, National University of Singapore

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTIVITIES38

/ Flexible Integrated Photonics Lab (FLIP LAB)

The primary focus of our research is the technology development as well as the practical implementation

of flexible integrated photonics. The related research directions include but are not limited to the following:

[1] Photonic integration development with novel materials such as optical glass materials,

biocompatible oxides, polymers, 2D materials, semiconductor membranes, etc.

[2] Design, fabrication, and testing of passive devices (3D optical couplers and optical switches,

nanocavities , photonic crystals , etc.) and active devices (on-chip light sources , modulators ,

photodetectors, etc.) with new functionalities.

[3] Application and exploration of flexible photonic chips in the field of sensing, communication, and

biotechnology.

We are leading and participating in several projects supported by Westlake University startup grant and

other provincial and national grants. The conducted projects are multidisciplinary, involving signal

processing, microfabrication, nanophotonics, microsystem integration, assembly, and packaging.

/ Lab of Flexible Electronics

We focus on interface engineering approaches to develop high performance metal oxide semiconductor

TFTs. Based on these devices, flexible sensors and active-matrix sensor arrays are achieved, enabling

applications in wearable health monitoring, display, image sensors, and other flexible sensor systems. In

addition, we attempt to develop neuromorphic devices, including artificial synapses and neurons, to

emulate and exceed the sense of human.

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTIVITIES39

Health Monitoring Intrinsically Stretchable Electronics Thin-film Transistors

Display Flexible Image Sensor Neuromorphic Computing Devices

/ Machine Intelligence Lab (MiLAB)

Offline reinforcement learning (ORL) aims to learn an optimal policy from pre-collected and labeled

datasets, which eliminates the time-consuming data collection in online RL. However, offline RL still bears

a large burden of specifying/handcrafting extrinsic rewards for each transition in the offline data. As a

remedy for the labor-intensive labeling, we propose to endow offline RL tasks with a few expert data and

utilize the limited expert data to drive intrinsic rewards, thus eliminating the need for extrinsic rewards. To

achieve that, we introduced Calibrated Latent gUidancE (CLUE), which utilizes a conditional variational

auto-encoder to learn a latent space such that intrinsic rewards can be directly qualified over the latent

space.

In addition, we are working towards offline preference-based reinforcement learning (PbRL), which

simplifies the acquisition of reward functions for RL with human feedback (RLHF). Specifically, we proposed

offline preference-guided policy optimization (OPPO), a one-step offline PbRL paradigm that jointly models

offline trajectories and preferences in one step, avoiding learning a reward function separately.

We are also interested in developing some legged robotic systems, aiming for pursuing the robot motion

intelligence and realizing embodied AI for open world. For instance, we developed a composite control

strategy for quadruped robot by integrating reinforcement learning and model-based control, which

exhibits the potential in environmental adaptability, while enhances the robustness of the quadruped robot

subject to the external disturbances.

We are leading several projects supported by Westlake University startup research budget, and other

internal, provincial and national grants. The conducted projects are multidisciplinary involving computer

vision, reinforcement learning, robot motion control, mechanical design, signal processing and braininspired theory.

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTIVITIES40

Calibrated Latent Guidance for Offline Reinforcement Learning

Reward-free RLHF

Composite motion control strategy for legged robot

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTI VITIESMachine Intelligence Lab(MiLAB) (Continued)41

/ Multifunctional Nanostructured Devices Lab

 We develop AL-3Dlitho equipment for manufacturing on-demand multiscale architectures.

 We manipulate multi-dimensional metasurface with the assistance of deep learning for

optoelectronic and biosensing devices.

 We develop sweat sensors for long-term continuous sweat biomarkers monitoring.

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTIVITIES42

/ Natural Language Processing Lab

Our main goal is to investigate robust open domain human language understanding and synthesis

technologies and their downstream uses. Current work can be categorized into three tiers. On the bottom

level, machine learning algorithms are investigated on fundamental representations and languages,

including syntax, semantics and world knowledge information. We are currently working on deep learning

and transfer learning algorithms. On the second level, fundamental NLP tasks such as syntactic and

semantic analysis and text synthesis for Chinese and English are investigated, and information extraction

tasks involving entities, relations, events and sentiments are explored. On the top level, text mining tasks

that leverage our language technologies are also investigated, and we have worked on financial

technologies based on text understanding, bio NLP and educational tasks.

Research Interests Human-in-the-loop

 Financial forecasting has been an important and active area of machine learning research, as even the

most modest advantage in predictive accuracy can be parlayed into significant financial gains. Recent

advances in natural language processing (NLP) bring the opportunity to leverage textual data, such as

earnings reports of publicly traded companies, to predict the return rate for an asset. However, when

dealing with such a sensitive task, the consistency of models – their invariance under meaningpreserving alternations in input– is a crucial property for building user trust. Despite this, current

financial forecasting methods do not consider consistency. To address this problem, we propose

FinTrust, an evaluation tool that assesses logical consistency in financial text. Using FinTrust, we show

that the consistency of state-of-the-art NLP models for financial forecasting is poor. Our analysis of the

performance degradation caused by meaning-preserving alternations suggests that current text-based

methods are not suitable for robustly predicting market information.

Pipelines of FinTrust

CenBRAIN Neurotech

Annual Report 2022-2023 R E S E ARCH ACTIVITIES43

 Most existing text generation models follow the sequence-to-sequence paradigm. Generative

Grammar suggests that humans generate natural language texts by learning language grammar. We

propose a syntax-guided generation schema, which generates the sequence guided by a constituency

parse tree in a top-down direction. The decoding process can be decomposed into two parts: (1)

predicting the infilling texts for each constituent in the lexicalized syntax context given the source

sentence; (2) mapping and expanding each constituent to construct the next-level syntax context.

Accordingly, we propose a structural beam search method to find possible syntax structures

hierarchically. Experiments on paraphrase generation and machine translation show that the proposed

method outperforms autoregressive baselines, while also demonstrating effectiveness in terms of

interpretability, controllability, and diversity.

Method illustration

 Systematic review is a crucial method that has been widely used by scholars from different research

domains. However, screening for relevant scientific literature from paper candidates remains an

extremely time-consuming process so the task of screening prioritization has been established to

reduce the human workload. Various methods under the human-in-the-loop fashion are proposed to

solve this task by using lexical features. These methods, even though achieving better performance

than more sophisticated feature-based models such as BERT, omit rich and essential semantic

information, therefore suffered from feature bias. In this study, we propose a novel framework SciMine

to accelerate this screening process by capturing semantic feature representations from both

background and the corpus. In particular, based on contextual representation learned from the pretrained language models, our approach utilizes an autoencoder-based classifier and a feature

dependent classification module to extract general document-level and phrase-level information. Then

a ranking ensemble strategy is used to combine these two complementary pieces of information.

Experiments on five real-world datasets demonstrate that SciMine achieves state-of-the-art

performance and comprehensive analysis further shows the efficacy of SciMine to solve feature bias.

The framework of SciMine

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/ Quantum Optoelectronics Group

Our research activities are mainly focused on light mater interactions with special emphasis on low

dimensional semiconductor nanostructures including the design and realization of optoelectronic devices

based on fundamentally novel principles. The current research activities include: Polariton quantum fluids

and circuits, prototype polaritonic qubit utilizing persistent currents in annular ring condensates, polariton

condensate lattices for quantum simulation. Novel polariton based optoelectronic devices: laser diodes,

transistors, THz bolometers. Hybrid organic-inorganic semiconductor microcavities.

 Development and fabrication of organic/inorganic polariton microcavity devices able to form polariton

condensates at room temperature with low power consumption.

In this project we exploit the large optical absorption and emssion properties of methylammonium

halide perovskites to develop and fabricate hybrid organic/inorganic polariton microcavity devices

showing strong -coupling and lasing at room temperature. By utilizing optical generated potentials

to create trapped polariton condensates, we study random number generators, spin switches and low

threshold lasers, while the fabrication of electrical contacts enables efficient electrical injection of

carries into the active medium for the develepment of hybrid light emitiing diodes and polariton lasers

operating at room temperature with low power consumption.

Perovskites crystals under optical microscope

 Demonstration of Quantum-bits via trapped Polariton states in lattice formations. Light manipulation

is achieved by use of Spatial Light Modulators.

In this project we use spatial light modulators along with phase calculation algorithms to create optical

traps for polariton condensates. This technology allows for the laser patterns to be tailored to the needs

of individual experiments by controlling the shape and intensity of the excitation beam. We are

developing experimental setups for the generation and manipulation of spin lattices and coupled

polariton condensates, where we can study the interactions of the condensates as we vary their

coupling strength by tuning of the optical trap properties.

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Calculated phase mask for the creation of an optical lattice (left);

lattice pattern created by the spatial light modulator (right)

 Design and optical characterization of novel devices focused on the spin manipulation, and

confinement of polariton condensates to be used for quantum simulation and quantum computing

applications.

We manipulate the optical properties of quantum wells inside a microcavity. Using Focused Ion Beam

to create defects in the crystalline structure of 2D GaAs quantum wells enables great spatial resolution.

The defects locally alter the optical properties of the system which is in turn “felt” by the polariton

condensates as a change in the potential landscape. This allows for the creation of precise waveguides

and confining potentials that reduce the dimensionality to 1D or 0D. High resolution potential

manipulation like this can lead to applications such as single polariton generators.

Photoluminescence GaAs quantum wells doped with arbitrary He+ doping patterns

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 Novel single-photon sources are nowadays being used in a wide variety of applications, including

quantum communications, quantum cryptography, and quantum computing. Exciton-Polariton

condensates is a well-established platform for the study of numerous quantum effects, owing largely

to their nature as macroscopic quantum objects comprising bosons with tunable interaction strength.

We utilize the polariton quantum cascade, the consecutive emission of spectrally shifted photons

during the relaxation of a polariton condensate, to generate few-photon states down to the singlephoton level, with high energy tunability and room temperature operation.

Polariton Quantum Cascade scheme for single-photon emission

/ The Quantum Polaritonics Lab

We are focusing on realization of quantum computation based on excitonpolariton qubits. The extreme confinement of exciton states, large exciton

binding energies, unusual spin-orbit coupling effects, as well as the roomtemperature operation, makes polariton a promising candidate for quantum

computation. A weak link pins a dark soliton characterized by a node of the

many-body wavefunction of the polariton condensate.

Schematic of a system running polariton superfluid currents.

Also, we are working on studying the room temperature BoseEinstein condensation of exciton-polariton system, based on

which, a polariton laser can be constructed. In contrast to

conventional lasers that generate light by stimulated emission of

radiation, polariton lasers emit light coherently and spontaneously.

Bosonic stimulation of phonon- or vibron-assisted and excitonmediated scattering allows the build-up of a coherent polariton

distribution on the lower polariton branch.

Besides, there are many other hot and interesting projects going

on with exploiting the exciton-polariton systems, including optical

spin Hall effect and exciton-polariton induced superconductivity,

which covers both optics and condensed matter physics.

Polariton laser

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/ Westlake Energy Storage Lab (WESL)

We are focusing on the development and design of electrolytes for electrochemical applications. We are

constructing the model of the solvation structure of electrolytes, the interphase/interface between

electrolyte and electrode, and the cross-talking in anode-electrolyte-cathode. Also, we are developing

novel battery systems, including high-energy Li batteries, fuel cells, aqueous batteries, and flow cells. The

application fields involve electric vehicles, portable equipment, large-scale energy storage, etc. We are

leading several projects supported by startup research budget, and other internal, provincial, and national

grants.

Battery fabricating

Flow cell

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CenBRAIN Neurotech

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CONTRIBUTIONS

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