- Senior Research Fellowship in 2023 at Chinese University of Hong Kong
About Professor Quan Li’s work
Professor Quan Li is a material scientist engaged in multi-disciplinary research on energy materials and devices, and nano-bio interface. In the past decade, Professor Li has focused on diamond-based quantum sensing, developing a unique quantum sensor and protocols with superior sensitivity to address intriguing problems in condensed matter physics, biomedicine and energy devices.
The potential of using diamond-based quantum sensing for long-term monitoring of evolving systems in various fields, including materials science and bio-medicine, is significant. However, there are challenges in interfacing the sensing scheme with real-life systems to investigate key problems in the relevant field.
Professor Li’s current work aims to develop a new platform that synchronises atomic force microscopy (AFM) indentation and diamond-based quantum sensing to achieve dynamic non-local deformation sensing. This new technology will address the bottleneck problems in biomechanical study of life systems, such as property monitoring of evolving systems with high temporal resolution and differentiating the stimuli-induced mechanical response from other activities.
Professor Li's research promises to advance the biomechanical study of live cells, as well as opening up new avenues for addressing crucial and emerging challenges across a diverse range of disciplines. These include: the investigation of dynamical criticality in nanomagnetism; the analysis of spatially resolved deformation transfer in soft materials and dynamic fluctuations within living systems; the examination of endogenous and exogenous processes at the subcellular level, and the exploration of spatially resolved ionic flow and heat dissipation in energy storage devices.
Biography
Professor Quan Li holds a BSc in Chemistry from Peking University and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University. Made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2021, Professor Li had previously won the HeiLongJiang Science and Technology Award-Rank 1 in 2012. She is a Professor at the Department of Physics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she has received both a Young Researcher Award and a Research Excellence Award. Her current research work is supported by a Croucher Senior Research Fellowship.