Chao Zhao was a Research scientist at Professor Boon Ooi Photonics Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). During his research at KAUST, he worked on molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth of III-N material and optoelectronic devices. He received his Ph.D. in Microelectronics and Solid-state electronics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009. His Ph.D. research focused on the MBE growth and characterization of InAs/GaAs and GaAs/AlGaAs nanostructures. He has authored, co-authored and delivered more than 80 journal articles, invited talks, and conference articles. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, serves as reviewers for various international journals, such as Optics Express, Scientific Reports, Langmuir, and Nanotechnology. He has also been the session chair for several international conferences. Currently, Chao is working as a Research Scientist at RWTH Aachen/Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.​​​

Previously from 2009-2015, he was working as a Research Scientist and Specialist in Core Labs on the Electron Microscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and deposition systems.

Research Interests

Chao's research interests include III - V compound semiconductors and devices, and Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction.

Selected Publications

• Chao Zhao, Yonghai Chen, Bo Xu, Chenguang Tang and Zhanguo Wang,  “Morphology and wetting layer properties of InAs/GaAs nanostructures”, Phys. Status Solidi C 6, 789 (2009).

• C. Zhao, Y.H. Chen, B. Xu, F. Ding, C.G Tang, Z.G. Wang, “Study of wetting layer of InAs/GaAs nanostructures grown by droplet epitaxy”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 063122 (2008).

• C. Zhao, Y.H. Chen, B. Xu, P. Jin, Z.G. Wang, “Evolution of InAs nanostructures grown by droplet epitaxy”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 033112 (2007).

• Riya Bose, Aniruddha Adhikari, Victor Burlakov, Guangyu Liu, Md Haque, Davide Priante, Mohamed Hedhili, Nimer Wehbe, Chao Zhao, Haoze Yang, Tien Ng, Alain Goriely, Osman Bakr, Tom Wu, Boon Ooi, Omar Mohammed, “Imaging Localized Energy States in Silicon-Doped InGaN Nanowires Using 4D Electron Microscopy”, ACS Energy Lett., 3, pp 476–481 (2018).

• Mohamed Ebaid, Jung-Wook Min, Chao Zhao, Tien Khee Ng, Hicham Idriss, and Boon S. Ooi, “Water Splitting over Epitaxially Grown InGaN Nanowires on-Metallic Titanium/Silicon Template: Reduced Interfacial Transfer Resistance and Improved Stability”, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 6, 6922-6930 (2018).

• C Xia, J. Guo, Y Lei, L. Hanfeng, C Zhao, HN Alshareef, “Rechargeable Aqueous Zinc-Ion Battery Based on Porous Framework Zinc Pyrovanadate Intercalation Cathode”, Advanced Materials 30, 1705580 (2018).

• Purushothaman Varadhan, Hui-Chun Fu, Davide Priante, Jose Ramon Duran Retamal, Chao Zhao, Mohamed Ebaid, Tien Khee Ng,  Idris A. Ajia, Somak Mitra, Iman S Roqan, Boon S. Ooi, Jr-Hau He, “Surface Passivation of GaN Nanowires for Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Water-Splitting”, Nano Lett., 17 (3), pp 1520–1528 (2017) (Most Read Articles of the month).

• Mohamed Ebaid, Davide Priante, Guangyu Liu, Chao Zhao, Mohd Sharizal Alias, Ulrich Buttner, Tien Khee Ng, Tayirjan Taylor Isimjan, Hicham Idriss, and Boon S. Ooi, “Unbiased Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation from Pure Water on Stable Ir-treated In0.33Ga0.67N Nanorods”, Nano Energy 37, 158–167 (2017).

• Ping Wang, Ying Yuan, Chao Zhao, Xinqiang Wang, Xiantong Zheng, Xin Rong, Tao Wang, Bowen Sheng, Qingxiao Wang, Yongqiang Zhang, Lifeng Bian, Xue-Lin Yang, Fu-Jun Xu, Zhixin Qin, Xin-Zheng Li, Xixiang Zhang, Bo Shen, “Lattice-polarity-driven epitaxy of hexagonal semiconductor nanowires”, Nano Lett. 16, 1328–1334 (2016).

• Chuan Xia, Qiu Jiang, Chao Zhao, Mohamed N. Hedhili, Husam N. Alshareef, “Selenide-Based Electrocatalysts and Scaffolds for Water Oxidation Applications”, Adv. Mater. 28, 77-85 (2016).

• Chuan Xia, Qiu Jiang, Chao Zhao, Pierre M Beaujuge, Husam Alshareef, “Asymmetric supercapacitors with metal-like ternary selenides and porous graphene electrodes”, Nano Energy 24, 78–86 (2016).

• Wei Peng, Xiaohe Miao, Valerio Adinolfi, Erkki Alarousu, Omar El Tall, Abdul-Hamid Emwas, Chao Zhao, Grant Walters, Jiakai Liu, Olivier Ouellette, Jun Pan, Banavoth Murali, Edward H. Sargent, Omar F. Mohammed, and Osman M. Bakr, “Engineering of CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite Crystals via Alloying Large Organic Cations for Enhanced Thermal Stability and Transport Properties”, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 128, 10844–10848 (2016).

• Bilal Janjua, Haiding Sun, Chao Zhao, Dalaver H. Anjum, Davide Priante, Abdullah A. Alhamoud, Lafi M. Alanazi, Feng Wu, Xiaohang Li, Ahmed Y. Alyamani, Munir M. El-Desouki, Tien Khee Ng, Abdulrahman M. Albadri, Boon S. Ooi, “Self-planarized quantum-disk nanowire ultraviolet-B emitter using pendo-epitaxy”, Nanoscale 9, 7805-7813 (2017).

• Bilal Janjua, Tien Khee Ng, Chao Zhao, Aditya Prabaswara, Giuseppe Consiglio, Davide Priante, Chao Shen, Rami ElAfandy, Dalaver Anjum, Abdullah Hamoud, Abdullah Atawi, Yang Yang, Ahmed Alyamani, Munir Eldesouki, Boon S. Ooi, “True Yellow Light-emitting Diodes as Phosphor for Tunable Color-Rendering Index Laser-based White Light”, ACS Photonics, 3(11), pp. 2089–2095 (2016).

• M. Conroy, H. Li, G. Kusch, C. Zhao, B. Ooi, R. W. Martin, Paul R. Edwards, J. D. Holmes, P. J. Parbrook, “Site controlled Red-Yellow-Green light emitting InGaN Quantum Disks on nano-tipped GaN rods”, Nanoscale 8, 11019-11026 (2016).

• Jafar I. Khan, Aniruddha Adhikari, Jingya Sun, Davide Priante, Riya Bose, Basamat S. Shaheen, Tien Khee Ng, Chao Zhao, Osman M. Bakr, Boon S. Ooi, Omar F. Mohammed, “Enhanced Optoelectronic Performance of a Passivated Nanowire-based Device: Key Information from Real-space Imaging using 4D Electron Microscopy”, Small 12, 2313–2320 (2016).

• Q. Zhang, P. Li, Y. Wen, C. Zhao, J. W. Zhang, A. Manchon, W. B. Mi, Y. Peng, and X. X. Zhang, “Anomalous Hall effect in Fe/Au multilayers”, Phys. Rev. B 94, 024428 (2016).

• Pan, Jun; Sarmah, Smritakshi P.; Murali, Banavoth; Dursun, Ibrahim; Peng, Wei; Parida, Manas R.; Liu, Jiakai; Sinatra, Lutfan; Alyami, Noktan; Zhao, Chao; Alarousu, Erkki; Ng, Tien Khee; Ooi, Boon S.; Bakr, Osman M.; Mohammed, and Omar F., “Air-Stable Surface-Passivated Perovskite Quantum Dots for Ultra-Robust, Single- and Two-Photon-Induced Amplified Spontaneous Emission”, J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 6 (24), 5027–5033 (2015).

• Thomas Frost, Shafat Jahangir, Ethan Stark, Saniya Deshpande, Arnab Hazari, Chao Zhao, Boon S. Ooi and Pallab Bhattacharya, “A Monolithic Electrically Injected Nanowire Array Edge-Emitting Laser on (001) Silicon”, Nano Lett. 14, 4535 (2014).

• Jingqi Li, Qingxiao Wang, Weisheng Yue, Zaibing Guo, Liang Li, Chao Zhao, Xianbin Wang, Anas I. Abutaha, H. N. Alshareef and X.X. Zhang, “Integrating carbon nanotubes into silicon by means of vertical carbon nanotube field-effect transistors”, Nanoscale 6, 8956 (2014).

• Yingbang Yao, QingXiao Wang, Hongtao Wang, Bei Zhang, Chao Zhao, Zhihong Wang, Zhengkui Xu, Ying Wu, Wei Huang, Pei-Yuan Qian and X. X. Zhang, “The bio-assembled nano-composites in conch shells exhibit giant electret hysteresis”, Adv. Mater. 25, 711 (2013).

• Jingqi Li, Chao Zhao, Qingxiao Wang, Qiang Zhang, Zhihong Wang, X.X. Zhang, A.I. Abutaha, H.N. Alshareef, “Vertically aligned carbon nanotube field-effect transistors”, Carbon 50, 4628 (2012).

Education Profile

• Ph.D. Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China (2004 - 2009).
• B.Eng. Metal Material Engineering, School of Material Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China (2000 - 2004).

Professional Memberships

• Research Scientist, Photonics Laboratory / Advanced Nanofabrication, Imaging and Characterization Core Lab, KAUST, KSA (2014).
• Research Specialist, Advanced Nanofabrication, Imaging and Characterization Core Lab, KAUST, KSA (2009 - 2014).
• Senior Member of IEEE (Photonics Society, and Electron Devices Society).
• Member of The Optical Society (OSA).
• Member of American Chemical Society (ACS).