Yu-Cheng Chen

Instead of using conventional fluorescence-based detection, laser emission-based detection opens a new way to detect molecules and cells more accurately with a higher spectral and spectral resolution. Despite the great progress in tiny lasers, all the lasers developed so far lack the ability to perform sensing functionality. The biggest challenge is how to achieve micro-nano scale lasers with sensing functions and how to control or program their functions at the molecular level. 

The most impactful innovation of research of Dr. Yu-Cheng Chen is the development of "micro-nano scale biological lasers with intelligent functions," which paves a new road for biomedical analysis and bioinformatics by employing laser emission. Such tiny lasers could therefore be integrated with living cells, tissue, or bodies to detect critical biochemical or physicals signals.

Biological lasers with intelligent functions represent a disruptive breakthrough in biological sensing with the potential to unlock new avenues of discovery in health research and life sciences. Such micro to nanoscale lasers could therefore be used to image or monitor critical biochemical or physical signals in living cells or human bodies with distinctive sensitivity and intensity. This interdisciplinary technology bridges laser physics and molecular biology to tackle biological sensing and imaging problems.

On the other hand, the role of bioinformation encoding is equally important, enabling us to distinguish among the complex yet critical biomolecular signals.

Chen's group recently developed several bioresponsive lasers, converting dynamic biomolecular information into more than trillions of distinctive photonic barcodes and fingerprints.

In addition, Dr. Chen invented the first 3D printed living on-chip lasers, opening new possibilities for high-throughput on-chip laser analysis of living organisms (virus, bacteria, cells). These breakthroughs represent a critical milestone to implement intelligent functions in micro-nano lasers for sensing and imaging.