Luo Receives McWilliams Fellowship

Carnegie Mellon University doctoral student Lianshun (Evan) Luo finds value in gold quantum rods.

Luo, whose research focuses on understanding the unusual optical and electronic properties of non-spherical gold nanoclusters, works in Chemistry Professor Rongchao Jin's lab, which develops new methodologies to create gold nanoparticles with precise numbers of atoms. Luo said Jin is the best adviser he has ever had.

"Whenever we have some crazy ideas, he just will say, go for it," Luo said. "When we have some questions, he responds very quickly and makes a lot of valuable suggestions."

For his work, Luo received the Bruce McWilliams Graduate Fellowship, which provides tuition, a stipend and fees for one academic year to a graduate student in the Mellon College of Science who is studying an area where Carnegie Mellon has a comparative advantage and where research is at an emerging or critical stage.

When nominating Luo for the fellowship, Jin wrote that "Evan's ingenious work has led to a success in achieving a series of atomically precise, anisotropic nanoclusters of metals."

Luo synthesized a series of gold quantum rods that strongly absorb and emit in the near-infrared, making them 100 times stronger than commercially available organic dyes. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February.

"This new class of precision nanomaterial holds potential in boosting silicon and organic solar cell efficiency up to about 40 percent (under one sun and single junction conditions) by utilizing the otherwise-wasted near-infrared solar light," Jin added.

The near-infrared photoluminescence of the rod-shaped nanoclusters also holds potential in other applications such as noninvasive biomedical imaging. Unlike visible light, which has wavelengths between 400-700 nm, near-infrared wavelengths can penetrate tissues more deeply – and dramatically improve the image resolution.

Luo said he plans to complete his Ph.D. in 2025. In the meantime, the fellowship will allow him to spend more time on his research and provide the opportunity to present at conferences, where he can meet potential collaborators and mentors. After graduation, he said he wants to get a postdoctoral appointment at a university, continuing his research on using quantum rods in biological applications and working with students.

Luo first became interested in chemistry when he was a high school student doing experiments. When he started conducting research in college, he said he was amazed to find that he was sometimes the first person in the world to observe something new.

Before he came to Carnegie Mellon in 2021, Luo earned his bachelor'sand master's degrees in material science and engineering from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and ShanghaiTech University, respectively.