Han Research Group

News

2026

• (4/7) Exciting news for our lab today. MSU has been awarded funding through Helion’s HERCULES program. We are one of 20 institutions across the US and UK selected. Our project is on the development of ultra-fast fiber-optic neutron detectors. We’re excited to be a part of the larger fusion research community accelerating globally deployed fusion electricity.

• (2/3) Xiaoli passed her PhD Qualifying Exam. Congratulations!

2025

• (12/5) Musaddeque passed his PhD Qualifying Exam. Congratulations!
• (9/25) Prof. Han attended the EPRI Sensors for Advanced Applications in Nuclear Workshop (Charlotte, NC) and gave two presentations on fiber-coil acoustic emission (AE) sensors and fiber-optic primary thermometers.
• (8/21) Ethan Staley, an undergraduate student supported by MSU's Professorial Assistantship program, joined our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (7/1–7/4) Prof. Han served as co-Chair of ISEM 2025 (the 22nd International Symposium on Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics) in East Lansing, Michigan. Xiaoli Wang and Babak Moeinimaleki contributed as student volunteers.
• (5/21) Prof. Xuan Zhou (University of Michigan–Dearborn) and his student Ningyue Mao visited our lab for technical discussions and to explore collaboration directions in fiber-optic sensing for battery research.
• (4/5) Our group participated in the MSU Science Festival again with our outreach program, “Exploring the Science of Light,” featuring updated presentation and demonstration materials. All students in our group, Musaddeque, Mohammed, Xiaoli, and Babak, contributed to the event and helped engage the public through hands-on optics and photonics activities.

2024

• (9/23) Jessica Ajongbah joined our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (9/3) Helinna Li joined our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (6/25) We worked with our collaborators at NRL and tested the high-speed fiber-optic temperature sensors on a cruise in Golf of Mexico. We thank Ayush and Xiaoli who did most of the work for the test.
• (5/21) Mohammed presented his work on high-temperature testing of fiber-coil ultrasonic sensors in the 32nd ASNT Research Symposium in Pittsburgh, PA.
• (3/4) Prof. Hai Xiao from Clemson University visited our group.
• (1/1) We welcome new PhD student, Babak Moeinimaleki, to join our group!

2023

• (11/21) Congratulations to Hasanure Chowdhury for passing the thesis defense for his PhD degree. Hasanur will join Nusenics in East Lansing, MI, as a Research Scientist starting on January 1, 2024. We are glad he will be around continuing working on fiber-optic sensors.
• (11/1) Abu Mitul received a job offer from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), Saginaw, MI. Congratulations!
• (8/23) Congratulations to Abu Mitul for passing the thesis defense for his PhD degree.
• (5/25) Prof. Xuan Zhou from University of Michigan-Dearborn visited our lab.
• (5/4) Congratulations to Hasanur Chowdhury for passing the comprehensive exam.
• (4/2) Our group participated in the MSU Science Festival. We proposed and presented a program called "Exploring the Science of Light". This program is intended to educate the public on the science of optics and photonics through presentations, demonstrations, and conducting science on site. Kudos to Xiaoli Wang for leading the effort and to Musaddeque Syed and Yufei Chu for helping make it a very successful event.
• (2/27) Dylan Calvin joined our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (2/3) Congratulations to Abu Mitul for passing the comprehensive exam.

2022

• (12/19) We welcome Dr. Yufei Chu to join our group as Research Associate. Yufei came to us from University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder CO, where he had been working in various capacities as postdoc, research assistant, and visiting student since 2019.
• (12/8) Prof. Han, together with Prof. Kara Peters from North Carolina State University and Prof. Shashank Priya from University of Minnesota, gave an invited luncheon talk at "the 6th Multifunctional Materials for Defense Workshop" held at 4100 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 450, Arlington, VA 22203.
• (11/11) Congratulations to Abu Mitul for passing the Ph.D. Part B Qualifying Exam.
• (9/30) Farzia Karim has accepted an offer from Nikon Metrology in Manassas, VA. Congratulations and good luck on your new endeavor, Farzia!
• (8/15) We welcome new PhD students, Mohammed Alshammari and Musaddeque Syed, to join our group!
• (7/15) Qiwen Sheng has transitioned to Nusenics, LLC, a university spin-off founded by Dr. Han to commercialize fiber-optic bolometers and temperature sensors.
• (7/14) Advances in Engineering highlighted our paper on fabrication of silicon-tipped fiber-optic temperature sensors using aerogel-assisted glass soldering with precise laser heating. The first author of the paper is Dr. Qiwen Sheng.
• (5/21) Our group participated in the Girls Math Science Day organized by the Graduate Women in Science Mid-Michigan Chapter. We provided hands-on activities for the audience to learn about optics including lasers, light reflection, transmission, polarization, and imaging systems. A big thank you to Farzia Karim and Xiaoli Wang for their time and contribution to the success of this event.
• (5/1) We welcome three undergraduate students, Ayush Chinmay, Jose Garcia-Jimenez, and Krish Chiwhane, all from our ECE department, to join our group as undergraduate researchers!
• (3/5) Nezam Uddin left MSU for a position at Intel. Congratulations, Nezam! We wish you continued success as you began a new chapter of your career.
• (2/11) Farzia Karim has been selected to participate in the iREDEFINE Workshop in New Orleans and receive an iREDEFINE Professional Development Award to cover the cost of her participation. Congratulations!
• (2/1) Nezam Uddin passed the thesis defense for his PhD degree. Congratulations, Dr. Uddin!
• (1/19) Prof. Han has been appointed as a Topical Editor for the journal of Optics Letters.

2021

• (10/27) Prof. Han gave an invited online talk titled "Fiber-optic acoustic emission sensors and bolometers" as part of a seminar series hosted by the Nondestructive Characterization Institute (NCI) of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNI).
• (9/21) Anchen Xue joined our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (9/15) We welcome new graduate student, Xiaoli Wang, to join our group.
• (9/1) We are glad that Qiwen chose to stay with us as a Research Associate.
• (8/26) Congratulations to Hasanur Chowdhury for passing the Ph.D. Part B Qualifying Exam.
• (8/12) Qiwen Sheng passed the thesis defense for his PhD degree. Congratulations, Dr. Sheng!
• (7/2) Congratulations to Nezam Uddin for passing the comprehensive exam.
• (7/1) A single-channel fiber-optic bolometer system developed in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Lab and University of Tennessee, Knoxille has been succesffully tested in the DIII-D National Fusion Facility for measurement of plasma radiation.
• (1/31) Yupeng Zhu left MSU for a postdoc position at Northwestern University. We wish him every success in his future endeavors.
• (1/28) Congratulations to Qiwen Sheng for passing the comprehensive exam.

2020

• (12/4) Congratulations to Yupeng Zhu, who successfully defended his PhD thesis. Yupeng is the first Ph.D. student of our group to graduate from MSU.
• (10/26) Prof. Ming Han gave an invited talk titled "Silicon-tipped optical fiber sensors" in the Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (ACP 2020).
• (8/1) Dr. Farzia Karim joined our group as Research Associate. Farzia came to MSU from University of Dayton (Dayton, Ohio), where she received her PhD degree in Electro-Optics and Photonics.
• (7/2) Mike Most joins the group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (5/29) Yupeng Zhu passed his comprehensive exam. Congratulations!
• (3/31) Nezam Uddin passed his Ph.D. Qualifying Examination, Part B. Congratulations!
• (2/19) In collaboration with Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC), we have successfully demonstrated our high-speed fiber-optic temperature sensor in the Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) 2020 in San Diego, CA. Kudos to graduate students Yupeng Zhu, Qiwen Sheng, and Nezam Uddin for developing the demomonstration unit.
• (2/18) Bohan Zhou joined the group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (1/15) Prof. Ming Han has been selected as an SPIE Community Champion for his "outstanding volunteerism with the Society in 2019".
• (1/5) Dr. Guigen Liu accepted a postdoc position at Harvard Medical School. Congratulations and we wish him continued success in the new chapter of his career.
• (1/3) Prof. Ming Han has been elevated to Fellow of SPIE "for achievements in fiber-optic sensor research and development".

2019

• (11/15) Advances in Engineering highlighted our paper on the constant temperature operation of fiber-optic anemometers for improved frequency response of the devices.
• (10/8) We welcome Dachuang Zhang to our group as an undergraduate researcher.
• (5/13) Yupeng Zhu received a summer internship position from IFOS! Congratulations.
• (5/8) Prof. Liqun Sun from Tsinghua University visited our lab and gave a seminar on his work in the areas of "trace gas detection using spectral absorption" and "optical coherence tomography (OCT)".
• (2/5-7) Drs. Joesph Rose (Penn State University and Guidedwave) and Jason Phitron (Guidedwave) visited MSU and our lab. As an international leader in the fields of wave mechanics, ultrasound and ultrasonic guided waves, Joe was invited here to give a talk titled "Avoiding infrastructure catastrophic failure with ultrasonic guided wave inspection" as part of the ECE Seminar Series. Jason was here to collaborate on a project with us.
• (2/21) Congratulations to Nezam Uddin, Abu Mitul, and Hasanur Chowdhury for passing the Ph.D. Part A Qualifying Exam!

2018

• (11/27) Mr. Thiago Seuaciuc-Osorio and Dr. James Wall from EPRI visited our lab.
• (10/31) Huiyu (Peter) Zhao, an undergraduate student in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at MSU, joins our group.
• (9/20) Congratulations to Yujie Lu for successfully defending his PhD thesis. Yujie has accepted a position at IFOS to continue working on fiber-optic sensors. Best of luck in your future endeavors, Dr. Lu!
• (8/29) We welcome two new PhD students, Abu Farzan Mitul and Hasanur Rahman Chowdhury, into our group.
• (8/16) Dr. Matthew Reinke from Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) visited us to discuss our collaborative work on fiber-optic sensors for plasmonic applications.
• (5/2-3) Dr. Weilin "Will" Hou from Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC) visited our lab.
• (1/1) Our group moved from University of Nebraska-Lincoln to Michigan State University.

2017

• (12/5) Yujie Lu passed his comprehensive exam. Congratulations!
• (11/8) Congratulations to Dr. Guigen Liu for receiving Honorable Mention of this year's Outstanding Postdoc Award. This university-level award is to honor "the achievements of exceptional postdoctoral scholars for their comprehensive efforts in research, teaching, mentoring, innovation, and University or community service."
• (10/26-27) Dr. Matthew Reinke from Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) visited us to discuss fiber-optic sensing for fusion plasma applications. This is Dr. Reinke's second trip to our lab in the past two years.
• (9/27) Prof. Junfeng Jiang from Tianjin University (China) visited our lab.
• (9/18-21) Dr. Jason Philtron from Guidedwave has been with us for the past three days to test our fiber-optic ultrasonic sensors for shear-horizontal wave detection. Dr. Philtron also gave a seminar to the group on guided waves and their selected applications.
• (9/21) We welcome two new visiting students, Zigeng Liu from Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China and Xin Wang from Ocean University of China to join our group.
• (9/15) We welcome visiting student Sema Guvenc to join our group. Sema came from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey,
• (8/1) We welcome new graduate student Nezam Uddin to join our group. Nezam came to us from South Dakota State University, where he received a MS degree in Electrical Engineering.
• (6/1) Advances in Engineering highlighted our paper on fiber-optic acoustic emission sensor system using a chirped fiber-Bragg-grating Fabry–Perot interferometer and smart feedback control.
• (5/23) Nebraska Today highlighted our paper on fiber-optic high-temperature thermistor and microheater. This story was also picked up by Fox 42 News KPTM . The same paper was also highlighted by Laser Focus World .
• (4/20, 23) Xiangyu Luo and Yihan Li passed their Final Oral Examinations for MS degree! Congratulations!
• (4/18) Lingling Hu successfully defended her PhD dissertation! Congratulations, Dr. Hu!
• (4/1) Dr. Qi Zhang accepted a position at LI-COR. We wish her all the best and success in her future endeavors.
• (2/27) Nolan Thurston joined us as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome!
• (2/13) Prof. Xuping Zhang from Nanjing University (China) visited our lab and presented her work on distributed fiber-optic sensors.

2016

• (12/16) Qiwen Sheng has passed the PhD qualifying exam. Congratulations!
• (8/12) Dr. Cheng Ma from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) visited our lab and gave an invited talk titled "Optical imaging and focusing inside scattering biological tissues".
• (6/15) Prof. Han was appointed as Associate Editor of Optical Engineering.
• (5/25) Ms. Jiayang Li from Princeton University joined our group as an undergraduate summer researcher. Welcome!
• (5/1) Lingling Hu received a summer internship position from Corning! Congratulations.
• (4/27) Prof. Qi Wang from Northeast University (Shenyang, China) joined us as a visiting scholar. Prof. Wang will be with us for a year. Welcome on board!
• (4/19) Prof. Han gave an invited talk on phase-shifted fiber Bragg gratings and their sensing applications at the conference of SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing in Baltimore, MD. Guigen Liu also attended this conference and presented our work on fiber-optic flow sensors.
• (3/15) We are glad that Dr. Qi Zhang choose to stay here as a postdoc!
• (3/4) IEEE Signal Processing Magazine presented a special report on our high-speed fiber-optic temperature sensor for oceanographic applications
• (2/12) Prof. Woo-Young Choi from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, visited our lab and gave an invited talk titled "Silicon ring modulators".
• (1/22) A conference paper Guigen Liu and Ming Han coauthored - "A novel, high-resolution, high-speed fiber-optic temperature sensor for oceanographic applications" - has won the 2015 Alan Berman Research Publication Award from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)! The other author of the paper is Dr. Weilin Hou from NRL.

2015

• (12/15) Yujie Lu passed his PhD qualification exam. Congratulations!
• (12/09) Qi Zhang successfully defended her PhD dissertation! Congratulations, Dr. Zhang!
• (11/09) Lingling Hu passed her comprehensive exam. Congratulations!
• (12/07) Dr. Matthew Reinke from Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) visited our lab to collaborate on testing our fiber-optic sensors for potential plasma applications and gave an invited talk titled "Making Measurements Above a Million Degrees: Diagnosing Plasmas for Fusion Energy Applications".
• (10/15) Dr. Weilin "Will" Hou from Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC) visited our lab and gave an invited talk titled "Optical Turbulence in the Ocean".
• (8/25) Qiwen Sheng joined our group as a PhD student. Welcome on board.
• (7/1) Two presentations we gave in the 2015 SPIE-DSS conference, one on high temperature measurement using gas as sensing element and the other on high-speed temperature measurement for underwater applications, are highlighted on the SPIE websites.
• (6/9) Colten Peterson will spend the summer with us as a REU student. Colten is currently a sophomore student with double major in physics and engineering physics at Southeast Missouri State University. Welcome!
• (6/7-10) Once again, our group and Dr. Ned Ianno's group jointly hosted the Young Nebraska Scientist Summer Camp for High School Students.
• (5/21) Yupeng Zhu passed his PhD qualification exam. Congratulations!
• (5/1) Geraldo de Resende Lisboa Piassetta joined us as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome!
• (4/23) Prof. Ming Han gave an invited presentation on an in-line fiber-optic temperature sensor for absolute measurement of high temperature at the SPIE-DSS conference in Baltimore, MD. Guigen Liu and Yujie Liu also attended the conference.
• (4/3) Our paper on high-speed and high-resolution fiber-optic temperature sensor was featured by an article in UNL Today. Read the article here.
• (3/11) In collaboration with Union Pacific engineers, Guigen Liu and David Pealsee successfully performed a field test of using FBGs to monitor the dynamic strains of train tracks at Union Pacific.
• (2/23-25) In collaboration with scientists from Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC), Guigen Liu successfully tested our recently-developed high-speed, high resolution temperature sensors for turbulence characterization at the NRL-SSC facility.

2014

• (9/1) Yupeng Zhu jointed our group as a graduate student. Welcome!

• (8/26) David Peaslee jointed our group as an undergraduate researcher. Welcome!

• (8/21) Prof. Ming Han was named Leadership Fellow in the College of Engineering.

• (7/18) Tongqing Liu successfully completed his dissertation defense. Congratulations!

• (7/7) Monica Lu, a Sophomore from Princeton University, joined our group as a summer intern. Welcome!

• (7/1) Xiangyu Luo joined our group as a graduate student. Welcome!

• (6/18) Our group and Dr. Ned Ianno's group jointly hosted the Young Nebraska Scientist Summer Camp for High School Students. The theme of this year's camp is "Light in the Nano World". In the 3-day (June 15-18) camp, the students learned fascinating properties of light and lasers, how to use light to measure nanometer thickness films, and how photons interact with quantum dots.

• (5/26) Elliot Sandford joined our group as a summer intern. He also worked in our group in the summer of 2013 as a high school student researcher. He just graduated from high school and was admitted to UNL College of Engineering. Congratulations.

• (4/25) Congratulations to Miranda Zhang on winning the third place of EE Department Graduate Poster Competition. Yujie Lu and Tongqing Liu also earned honorable mentions!

• (4/17) Tongqing Liu's poster was selected as one of the top two in this year's College of Engineering Graduate Poster Competition. Congratulations!

• (4/9) Dr. Guigen Liu joined our group as a Postdoc Research Associate. Welcome!

• (4/7) Prof. Han received the Edgerton Innovation Award and the Faculty Research & Creative Activity Award from UNL College of Engineering.

• (3/7) Our paper on fiber-optic distributed ultrasound generation is featured online on Advances In Engineering.

• (2/26) Tongqing passed his comprehensive exam. Congratulations!

• (1/25) Our website is up!