Liping Yu is an associate professor who joined the UCF Department of Materials Science and Engineering Department under the Semiconductor Initiative in fall 2023. Before that, he was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Maine. After obtaining his Ph.D. in physics from North Carolina State University, he spent five years working for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Frontier Research Center for Inverse Design, first as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and then as an assistant research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Following this, he worked for three years at the DOE Energy Frontier Research Center for the Computational Design of Functional Layered Materials at Temple University as a research assistant professor. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2023.

Yu’s research specializes in semiconductor physics and the first-principles understanding and design of new and improved materials for next-generation electronics and sustainable energy.

• Materials theory, modeling, informatics and design
• Solid phase transitions
• High-entropy materials
• Interface and surface materials
• Energy and electronic materials

• Dey, A. Ray, and L.Yu, “Intrinsic ferromagnetism and restrictive thermodynamic stability in 2D MA₂N₄and Janus VSiGeN₄ monolayers,”  Physical Review Materials (2022) 6: L061002. (Letter)
• Liu, G. Na, F. Tian, L. Yu, J. Li, L. Zhang, “Computational functionality‐driven design of semiconductors for optoelectronic applications,” InfoMat (2020) 2:879–904.
• Yu, Q. Yan, A. Ruzsinszky.“Key role of antibonding electron transfer in bonding on solid surfaces,” Physical Review Materials (2019) 3: 092801 (R).
• Yu, Q. Yan, and A. Ruszinzsky, “Negative Poisson’s Ratio In 1T-Type Crystalline Transition Metal Dichalcogenides,” Nature Commun. 8, 15224 (2017)
• Yu, A. Ruszinzsky, and J. P. Perdew, “Bending two-dimensional materials to control charge localization and Fermi-level shift,” Nano Letters 16, 2444-2449 (2016).
• Gautier, X. Zhang, L. Hu, L. Yu, Y. Lin, Tor O. L. Sunde, D. Chon, K.R. Poeppelmeier,and A. Zunger “Prediction and laboratory discovery of new 18-electron ABX compounds and their functionality,” Nature Chemistry, 7, 308 (2015).
• Yu and A. Zunger, “A polarity-induced defect mechanism for conductivity and magnetism at polar-nonpolar oxide interfaces,” Nature Commun. 5:5118 (2014).
• Yu, R.S. Kokenyesi, D.A. Keszler, A. Zunger, “Inverse Design of High Absorption Thin-Film Photovoltaic Materials,” Advanced Energy Materials. 3, 43(2013).
• Yu and A. Zunger, “Identification Of Potential Photovoltaic Absorber Materials From First Principles Spectroscopic Material Screening,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 068701 (2012).

•  2023 NSF CAREER award

• American Physical Society
• Materials Research Society

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