Yale Engineer Wins Packard Fellowship for Harnessing Power of Light

Published: October 15, 2009

Hong Tang, an electrical engineer at Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, is one of the 16 young scientists from across the country selected as this year’s Packard Fellows.

New Haven, Conn. — Hong Tang, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, has been awarded a 2009 Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the foundation announced Thursday.

The fellowship is given annually to 16 of the country’s most innovative young researchers in the natural or physical sciences and engineering. It consists of an unrestricted grant of $875,000 over five years.

“The Packard Fellowship is one of the most prestigious early career awards for physical scientists and we are extremely pleased that Hong Tang has received this honor,” said Steven Girvin, Yale’s deputy provost for science and technology. “His work on using optical forces to activate motion in nanoscale systems is of great interest both for fundamental science and for practical applications.”

Tang’s research in photonics focuses on the incredibly weak force exerted by ordinary light. While scientists have known about light pressure for more than a century, they have struggled to find a useful purpose for it. Although this force is extremely feeble, Tang is interested in using it to manipulate components of silicon chips. Employing light rather than electricity to throw nanoscale switches, for example, could enable new routes for classical and quantum computing.

“The full potential of this platform has yet to be fully realized. Being awarded the Packard Fellowship is recognition that this is an area of research that has far-reaching applications, opening up new avenues of research,” said Tang. “I am thankful to the Packard Foundation for providing this wonderful opportunity. Their support will allow us to work on the forefront of nanoscale quantum physics while simultaneously bringing light force devices into engineer-able reality.”

Tang joined Yale in 2006 after receiving his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Earlier this year, he also won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

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