An Introduction of Professor Paul K Chu(朱剑豪教授）（City University of Hong Kong)

Paul K Chu was born in Hong Kong and attended both primary and secondary school at St. Joseph's Anglo-Chinese School. He went to the United States at the age of 17 and was accepted to the honors program at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He was awarded the prestigious American Chemical Society (ACS) Student Fellowship and worked at New England Aquarium in Boston on trace metal analysis of seawater during the summer of 1976. He received his BS in mathematics (cum laude and phi beta kappa) from Ohio State in 1977 and went to graduate school at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He won the DuPont teaching award as a teaching assistant at Cornell in 1978 and joined the research group of Prof. George H Morrison of the Department of Chemistry. Prof. Morrison was one of the prominent figures in analytical chemistry having been involved with the Apollo moon expedition programs. Prof. Morrison was a winner of the ACS Analytical Chemistry Award and Editor-in-Chief of Analytical Chemistry, the premier journal in analytical chemistry published by the American Chemical Society. Under the supervision of Prof. Morrison and Prof. James W Mayer of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Cornell, Paul conducted research on ion beam processing and characterization of semiconductors and received his MS and PhD in chemistry in 1979 and 1982, respectively.

Upon graduation, he joined Charles Evans & Associates in California which was a small company at that time but later became one of the biggest companies in the late 1980s in materials characterization. During the eight year span from 1982 to 1990, Paul was promoted 4 times and became one of the most recognized international figures in the area of secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). He was one of the organizers of the SIMS-VII conference in Monterey, California in 1989, and wrote the chapter on SIMS in “Encyclopedia of Materials Characterization”. In 1990, with the help of the parent company, Paul started his first company, Evans Asia, in Hong Kong / Taiwan / Singapore / China specializing in materials characterization and analytical equipment.

In 1996, he joined City University of Hong Kong as a faculty member and ventured into the new area of plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII). He obtained financial support from City University of Hong Kong, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, as well as Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) to establish the Plasma Laboratory in City University of Hong Kong. The Plasma Laboratory has emerged to be one of the most well known and versatile PIII facilities in the world, and Paul is recognized as one of the leading international figures in plasma-based materials engineering. He is the elected Chairman of the International Plasma-Based Ion Implantation Executive Committee which organizes the biannual International Workshop on Plasma-Based Ion Implantation and Deposition (PBII&D). He is also a member of the Ion Implantation Technology (IIT) International (Governing) Committee that organizes the biannual International Conference on Ion Implantation Technology.

Paul joined IEEE in 1997, became a senior member in 1999, and was elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2003 for his contributions to the understanding of plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition. He is very active in the IEEE serving as a member of the international advisory board of the IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS) from 1996 to 1998, Guest Editor of 3 special issues of IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science [vol. 34, no. 4 (2006); vol. 33, no. 4 (2005); vol. 32, no. 2 (2004)], Senior Editor of IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science since 2006, and an executive committee (ExCom) member of the IEEE Plasma Science and Application Committee (PSAC) since 2007. Paul joined AVS (American Vacuum Society) in 2002 and was elected Fellow of AVS in 2006 for his contributions to plasma science and surface engineering of materials and industrial components. He is also Fellow of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (FHKIE). Paul is an elected scientific member of the Böhmishe Physical Society (BPS) as well as member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and Materials Research Society (MRS). Locally, he is a technical advisor to the National 863 Materials & Surface Engineering R&D Center in Shenzhen, China, advisor to Shenzhen Polytechnic, and member of the standing committee of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. He is an associate editor of International Journal of Plasma Science and Engineering and has been a member of the Editorial Board of Materials Science and Engineering: Reports since 2005, International Journal of Molecular Engineering since 2006, Surface and Interface Analysis since 2006, and Recent Patents on Material Science since 2007. He was a member of the Editorial Board of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms from 2000 to 2006 and guest editor of the PBII&D2005 special issue published in Surface and Coatings Technology [vol. 201, no. 15 (2007)]. He was a co-chair / organizer of Symposium GG: Ion-Beam-Based Nanofabrication in the MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco in 2007. He was a member of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Engineering Panel from 2000 to 2006.

Academically, in addition to being Professor (Chair) of Materials Engineering in the Department of Physics & Materials Science in City University of Hong Kong, he holds or has held advisory / visiting professorship in ten universities and research institutes in China: Institute of Microelectronics in Peking University (Beijing), Department of Materials Science in Fudan University (Shanghai), Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Shanghai Jiaotong University (Shanghai), Department of Materials Engineering in Southwest Jiaotong University (Chengdu), School of Materials Science and Engineering in Harbin Institute of Technology (Harbin), Department of Physics in Nanjing University (Nanjing), College of Materials Engineering in Jiamusi University (Jiamusi), Southwestern Institute of Physics (Chengdu), Shanghai Institute of Ceramics of The Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of The Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has established a joint PhD program with the University of Sydney in Australia in which students in his research group in City University of Hong Kong or School of Physics in the University of Sydney receive PhD degrees from both universities upon graduation. He also participates in a similar joint PhD program between City University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University, China. Paul's teaching credentials are quite impressive. He won the DuPont Teaching Award at Cornell University. At City University of Hong Kong, he has been voted “best lecturer” and “best presenter” by students in his department and short listed for the Teaching Excellence Award. He has taught many short courses and professional seminars on materials characterization and processing in universities and companies in the US, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Paul's research activities are quite diverse, spanning plasma science and engineering, ion implantation, surface modification, functional thin films, biomaterials, semiconductor materials and processing, optoelectronic materials, as well as nanotechnology. He is the editor of two books on biomaterials and plasma engineering. He has published more than 10 book chapters, 550 papers in international refereed journals, and 550 international conference papers, many of which invited or plenary. His innovative works on light emission from plasma-implanted silicon, novel silicon-on-insulator (SOI) materials, as well as the enhancement of surface bioactivity and blood compatibility of biomaterials using plasma, chemical, and optical techniques have been featured many times in magazines and electronic journals. He has obtained US$10 million in research funding from agencies and companies in Hong Kong, Australia, China, Germany, Switzerland, and the US. Two of his research projects were awarded the "Excellent" rating by the City University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Research Grants Council and he was the winner of the Second Best Paper Award in the IEEE International SOI Conference.

Paul is also heavily involved in applied research and industrial applications. His innovations on plasma processing and instrumentation have led to 8 United States patents and 3 Chinese patents. He founded his second company, Plasma Technology Ltd., in 1998 and co-founded his third company, Chengdu Pulsetech Electrical Co. Ltd., in 2001 to address the Chinese and other markets. The two companies specialize in the development of commercial plasma-based technologies as well as production of hardware such as ion sources, plasma implanters, and power supplies while also providing consultation to the industry. He was awarded the Applied Research Certificate of Merits for innovations in plasma instrumentation and power supplies and Hong Kong Awards for Industry: Technological Achievement Certificate of Merit for the development of plasma implantation and deposition technologies. Internationally, Paul’s achievement was instrumental to the establishment of Silicon Genesis Corporation in the Silicon Valley in California. Paul's research group produced the world’s first 100mm and 150mm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers by plasma immersion ion implantation and ion-cutting, leading to multi-million dollar capital infusion from Intel, Applied Materials, MEMC, Komatsu, H&Q and other VCs into Silicon Genesis. The invention was featured on the cover of the 40th anniversary issue of Solid State Technology as the representative technology from Hong Kong.

Paul participates actively in amateur sports and is Honorary Manager of the City University of Hong Kong varsity badminton and swimming teams. He has won men's singles, men's doubles, mixed doubles, and teams events in CityU Student/Staff badminton tournaments. In swimming, he holds all of the City University of Hong Kong staff records in breast stroke and butterfly and has won more than 100 medals in Hong Kong masters swimming competitions.

For more information, please go to this website:
http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ap/plasma/Paul%20Chu/paul_chu.htm

show more of this story......

Breakthrough of This Year:Areas to Watch in 2007(excerpt from Science)

World-weary? Hardly. Four fledgling spacecraft will give planetary scientists plenty to ponder in 2007. Europe's COROT orbiting exoplanet hunter, scheduled for launch 27 December, should detect dozens of new "hot Jupiters" around other stars and may even bag its big quarry: signs of rocky planets just a few times the size of Earth. Closer to home, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will take the sharpest-ever pictures of the martian surface and will use radar to look for rock layers--and ice--as much as 1 kilometer deep. The Venus Express orbiter will be going full tilt, and in February, New Horizons will send back snapshots of Jupiter en route to its 2015 rendezvous with Pluto.

Skulls and bones. In recent years, paleoanthropologists have uncovered new skulls, teeth, and lower limbs of the earliest members of our genus Homo at sites in the Republic of Georgia, China, and Kenya. In 2007, the first descriptions of these fossils should give clues to the identity of the first human ancestors to leave Africa about 1.8 million years ago--such as whether the bones all belong to one species (Homo erectus) or to two or more. Meanwhile, the long-awaited partial skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, an early human ancestor that lived in Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago, promises to shed light on how upright walking evolved in early hominids.

Loads of new primate genes. With the human and chimpanzee genomes sequenced, genetic research into our evolutionary past is scrambling up other branches of the primate family tree. Lowresolution maps of gorilla, rhesus macaque, orangutan, marmoset, and gibbon genomes are already available, and refined, error-free versions should be ready in 2007. In addition, look forward to rough drafts of the genomes of the galago, tree shrew, and mouse lemur. If things go as planned, a comparative analysis of all these genomes might finally begin to explain what sets humans apart.

A climate of change? The case for human-induced warming will grow even more ironclad as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its report in February. Meanwhile, the International Polar Year, opening in March, will feature climate research on Earth's coldest climes. And the world is watching the U.S. Congress, which, under Democratic control, is expected to pass some sort of mandatory emission regime, and President George W. Bush, whose response will be sure to shape the debate.

Whole-genome association studies. The trickle of studies comparing the genomes of healthy people to those of the sick is fast becoming a flood. Already, scientists have applied this strategy to macular degeneration, memory, and inflammatory bowel disease, and new projects on schizophrenia, psoriasis, diabetes, and more are heating up. But will the wave of data and new gene possibilities offer real insight into how diseases germinate? And will the genetic associations hold up better than those found the old-fashioned way?

CREDIT: CIRAC AND ZOLLER/SCIENCE (2003)
Light crystals. Ultracold atoms continue to be one of the hottest areas in physics. Now researchers are loading the atoms into corrugated patterns of laser light known as optical lattices. The lattices work like artificial crystals, with the spots of light serving as the ions in the crystal lattice and the atoms playing the role of electrons moving through it. Optical lattices could help crack problems such as high-temperature superconductivity and seem sure to produce interesting new physics. Look for rapid progress in this burgeoning effort.

show more of this story......

Fastest Waves Ever Photographed!

Pictures of the fastest moving waves ever photographed were presented this morning at APS Division of Plasma Physics meeting in Philadelphia. These shots are more than your typical pretty pictures – they represent a major advance in wakefield accelerator technology, a technology that could make tabletop high-energy particle accelerators a reality.



The matter waves, which are oscillations moving through a plasma, are known as wakefields because they are created in the wake of an ultra-intense laser pulse. The waves travel at 99.997% of the speed of light and generate electric fields exceeding 100 billion electron volts/meter.


The ability to create huge electric fields makes wakefields a promising method for shrinking the size of accelerators from miles long (like those at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, FermiLab and CERN) to tabletop. Small accelerators would allow universities and hospitals to take advantage of the research and medical applications afforded by an accelerator without competing for time at a major particle accelerator facility.



Much work remains before tabletop accelerators can be a reality – particularly in understanding the interactions between a wakefield, the accelerated electrons, and the laser pulse. The ability to photograph wakefields is exciting news for scientists because it allows them to explore these interactions and compare theoretical predictions to real data.



Researchers from the University of Texas designed a holographic-strobe camera to take these pictures. Their method, called Frequency Domain Holography, sends two additional laser pulses though the plasma along with the ultra-intense pulse. The additional pulses detect the oscillations and then travel through a spectrometer where they interfere and are analyzed.An abstract of the talk and a lay language paper describing the research are available online.

show more of this story......

Industrial Postdocs(by Rick H Fields)

Industrial Postdocs: The Pros and Cons of Doing an Industrial Postdoc (by Rick H Fields)
United States6 August 1999

Rick H. Fields is a Thin Film Materials Science postdoc working in a large industrial research center in California. His name has been changed to protect his identity.
As long back as I can remember, I always intended to obtain a doctorate degree in the sciences. As my father had done, I planned on joining the ranks of industrial researchers to advance technology for the profit of the company, the benefit for consumers, and possibly society. During my graduate career, I visited and interacted with many researchers from industrial, national, and university laboratories. I was truly fortunate in that I had numerous possibilities after graduation. However, my goal of obtaining a permanent research staff position at a California company limited my choices to a handful of companies. From the beginning, my job search focused on a particular company. Let's call them Company X. I was attracted by the productivity of numerous highly respected scientists of Company X's research center.
Despite being actively recruited by Company X, I was unable to secure a permanent research position as I had hoped. Instead, I was offered a postdoctorate position by a reputable researcher at the company. Despite my high ambitions, I decided that an industrial postdoc would provide me with extensive exposure within the company and potentially lead to a permanent position. The experience would also make me attractive to other potential future employers. Eighteen months have passed since I made the decision. I will try to shed light on the positives and negatives of pursuing an industrial postdoc position based on my experience and that of fellow industrial postdocs.

High-tech companies hire industrial postdocs as a recruitment tool and to do exploratory research beyond the scope of the designated program. If one has not decided whether to pursue an academic or industrial career, an industrial postdoc position is an excellent opportunity to observe the environment and demands of an industrial researcher. The secrecy and motivations behind industrial or applied research is an entirely foreign world for most graduate students when emerging from an academic environment. You will be reeducated in terminology and processes not listed in graduate textbooks or academic journals. You may find yourself operating state-of-the-art research and manufacturing equipment supported by an active supporting staff of technical engineers. The competitive race for cutting-edge technology requires large-scale but selective capital investment by high-tech companies. The highlight of my postdoc experience is my professional and personal associations with the collection of motivated and talented engineers and scientists. These experts were readily available to dispense advice regarding a wide variety of disciplines and problems. An advantage of the "temporary employee" status of postdocs is that I was "excused" from most of the bureaucratic requirements imposed by corporate management. Financially, industrial postdocs are paid competitively with similar positions at national labs and considerably more than academic postdocs. Industrial postdocs are also invited to participate in the company stock purchase plan and other employee discount programs.

The disadvantages of being an industrial postdoc are numerous and complicated. Your experience may vary greatly from mine depending on the industry, corporate culture, your attitude, and your supervisor. Being in industry, one must naturally expect to focus on an aspect related to commercial technology. Basic science research does exist within industry, but such opportunities are few and with limited funding due to marginal interest from management. Because you are regarded as a temporary employee, the company is obliged to protect its many industrial secrets by denying you access or exposure. I found this unbelievably frustrating and detrimental to my scientific development. Despite the availability of experts and equipment, I became aware very quickly of the limits and closed doors. I am not permitted to attend the weekly group meetings nor other internal discussions. I flourished in the openness of the academic setting, but wilted in this stifling environment. After some time, one simply loses interest in the projects of the other group members. To avoid disclosure problems, you may be assigned projects only distantly related to product level technology; however, if your research results suggest a new area of unlicensed technologies, you will experience great difficulty in publishing or disclosing your work outside of the company. All external publications and presentations must go through a process of managerial approval to determine if the research results are proprietary. Similarly, internal collaborations are encouraged but limitations to external collaborations exist due to financial and proprietary constraints.

There are a number of more subtle and circumstantial disadvantages to the industrial environment. If you design and construct an analytical or characterization tool, your association with the equipment can create the dangerous situation of being reduced to a glorified technician. Postdocs in this position resented the narrow focus of their position and felt abused. In the industrial management scheme, a hierarchy of decision-making and control exists where the focus of research is often dictated from above. The external control can create situations of unwanted interference. I soon also realized that my position placed me at the bottom of the pyramid of power. The progress of my work was impeded by delays because my samples were often deemed "low priority." As a postdoc, you are granted a limited travel budget to attend conferences in your field which is subjected to managerial approval. Despite the competitive pay as a postdoc, the postdoc salary is only 50% to 70% of that of the researchers and supporting engineering staff. Due to the temporary employee status, I am denied certain benefits given to permanent employees such as a dental plan and contributions to a retirement account. Postdocs are not eligible for pay increases during the length of their contract and ineligible for variable pay such as bonuses. Finally, working for 2 years for a company does not guarantee any position, let alone a research position. Many of the retained postdocs are often placed in engineering positions due to the lack of new research positions.

During the 18 months of my postdoc, I often asked myself if I would have made the same decision. Although I am very happy with my fellow co-workers, I continually suffered from an overwhelming sense of frustration that never abated. I found the environment to be confining and it limited my productivity. I wanted to contribute more, but my enthusiasm was often doused by the policy of confidentiality. In hindsight, I probably should have increased my options and pursued my goal of a permanent industrial position to greater lengths. In the months remaining in my postdoc, I will seek a permanent position at an industrial research center. The change in status may eliminate the frustration of closed doors, but I realize that many of the limitations I listed are intrinsic to the industrial environment

show more of this story......