Shawn Yu Lin

Shawn Yu Lin (born in 1959 in Taiwan) is a Taiwanese American physicist, researcher, and educator who made pioneering contributions to the field of photonics and photonic crystals. He authored more than 250 technical papers.

Shawn Yu Lin
Shawn Yu Lin on the occasion of a faculty awards ceremony at RPI in Troy NY (2004).
Born	October 21, 1959 Hualien, Taiwan
Nationality	Taiwan, U.S.
Alma mater	Princeton University
Known for	Pioneering contributions to photonics and photonic crystals
Scientific career
Fields	Photonics and photonic crystals
Institutions	IBM Research (1992-1994) Sandia (1994-2004) RPI (2004-present)
Doctoral advisor	Daniel C. Tsui

Professional career

After graduating from high school in Hualien, Taiwan, Lin attended NTU (Taipei, Taiwan) and received a B.S. in Physics in 1982. Subsequently, he attended UNC-Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) and received an M.S. in Physics in 1986. Subsequently, he attended Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey) and received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1992.

In 1992, Lin joined the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, as a Post-doctoral Fellow. In 1994, Lin joined Sandia, Albuquerque, NM, initially as a Member-of-Technical-Staff and later became a Distinguished Member-of-Technical-Staff. Lin also served as Research Professor (Physics) at Iowa State University, Ames, IA (2000-2004), Adjunct Professor (Material Science and Engineering) at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA (2002-2004), and Visiting Scientist (Electrical Engineering) at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (2003-2004). In 2004, he joined RPI, Troy, NY, as a Chaired Professor of Physics.

Technical contributions

Since photonic crystals were first proposed in 1987, researchers have attempted to build practical three-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs). Lin and co-workers took photonic crystals down into the nano-realm using advanced semiconductor processing. In 1998, he developed the first large scale, 3-dimensional photonic crystal having a complete photonic band gap. In the same year, he demonstrated the first diffraction-less guiding and bending of light in a photonic crystal with a bending radius less than the wavelength. In 2015, Lin's research was reported as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 2002, Lin created the first all-metallic photonic crystal. Upon thermal excitation, the photonic crystal reshapes the blackbody radiation spectrum and produces a coherent thermal emission. Extending this finding, Lin demonstrated that the intense photon field inside the crystal can be amplified through a non-equilibrium plasmonic excitation, leading to an order-of-magnitude enhancement of light emission beyond that predicted by the Planck blackbody radiation law.

In 2007, Lin developed a meta material that constitutes “the blackest material known to science” (quote from Sir John Pendry). Rather than examining a single nanotube, Lin studied the collective behavior of millions of nanotubes arranged in a "nano-forest." The blackest material was shown to absorb 99.97% of incident light, a Guinness world record. A perfectly black material is the pinnacle of stealth technology because it cannot be seen.

Selected technical papers

• "A three-dimensional photonic crystal operating at infrared wavelengths" SY Lin, JG Fleming, DL Hetherington, BK Smith, R Biswas, KM Ho, MM Sigalas, W Zubrzycki, SR Kurtz, Jim Bur, Nature 394 (6690), 251-253 (1998).
• "Optical thin-film materials with low refractive index for broadband elimination of Fresnel reflection" JQ Xi, MF Schubert, JK Kim, EF Schubert, M Chen, SY Lin, W Liu, Joe A Smart, Nature Photonics 1 (3), 176-179 (2007).
• "Experimental demonstration of guiding and bending of electromagnetic waves in a photonic crystal" SY Lin, E Chow, V Hietala, PR Villeneuve, JD Joannopoulos, Science 282 (5387), 274-276 (1998).
• "Experimental observation of an extremely dark material made by a low-density nanotube array" ZP Yang, L Ci, JA Bur, SY Lin, PM Ajayan, Nano Letters 8 (2), 446-451 (2008).
• "All-metallic three-dimensional photonic crystals with a large infrared bandgap" JG Fleming, SY Lin, I El-Kady, R Biswas, KM Ho, Nature 417 (6884), 52-55 (2002).
• "Three-dimensional control of light in a two-dimensional photonic crystal slab" E Chow, SY Lin, SG Johnson, PR Villeneuve, JD Joannopoulos, Joel R Wendt, Gregory A Vawter, W Zubrzycki, H Hou, A Alleman, Nature 407 (6807), 983-986 (2000).
• "Three-dimensional photonic-crystal emitter for thermal photovoltaic power generation" SY Lin, J Moreno, JG Fleming, Applied Physics Letters 83 (2), 380-382 (2003).

Awards and Distinctions

• 1999 Recipient of NOVA Award, Sandia National Laboratories.
• 1999 Recipient of R&D 100 Award, US R&D Magazine.
• 2002 Recipient of the 1st Asia-American Engineer-of-the-Year Award, US Chinese Institute of Engineering.
• 2002 Elected Fellow, APS (List of APS Fellows).
• 2003 Elected Fellow, OSA (List of OSA Fellows).
• 2004 Recipient of New York NYSTAR Distinguished Professor Award.
• 2002-2004 Member, Technical Advisory Committee, ITRI, Taiwan.
• 2002-2004 Member, Nano Advisory Committee, ITRI, Taiwan.
• 2004 Appointed Constellation Chair Professor, RPI.
• 2004 Appointed Chair Professor, NCTU.
• 2008 Awarded Guinness World Record for discovering “the darkest material.”
• 2010-2012 Appointed Chair Professor, National Taiwan Normal University.
• 2012 Elected Fellow, AAAS (List of 2012 AAAS Fellows).
• 2016 Recipient of the IEEE "Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology.”
• 2017 Elected Fellow, SPIE (List of SPIE Fellows).