Advanced Laser Materials Processing and Energy Technology Lab.
Kang Group research areas: Our advanced laser materials processing research area is composed of light-matter interaction studies, advanced manufacturing and applications. Our Energy technology division is composed of in-situ characterization studies, piezoelectrochemical energy harvesting and lithium ion battery research.

Our group focuses on two research areas: advanced laser materials processing and energy technology.

In advanced laser materials processing, ultrafast lasers are used to understand light-matter interactions and to develop direct-writing techniques to fabricate functional material structures in 2D and 3D. Ultrafast lasers allow confinement in temporal space, in addition to the spatial component, enabling increased control over heat transfer and photon dynamics for various applications. In energy technology, we explore various energy storage materials and perform characterization studies to acquire fundamental understanding of the energy storage mechanism.

The two research areas create a synergy through exchange of fundamental knowledge acquired in each area and by utilizing laser processing techniques as a powerful tool-kit to ablate, modify, or create materials. Our long term goal is to resolve the imbalance between theoretical advancements and experimental realizations and to aid in technology transfer from lab-scale to manufacturing. For example, development in advanced laser materials processing techniques will resolve many problems arising during large-scale manufacturing and the understanding gained from studying the mechano-electrochemical coupling will resolve the mechanical stress evolution issue which is one of the main problems in large-scale manufacturing of energy storage systems.

We THANK our sponsors:

Kang group sponsors

News

  • Actively recruiting PhD students
    We are actively recruiting PhD students! Please reach out if you are or you know anyone who may be interested. Looking for students with some background in lasers, optics, or multi-material 3D printing via light assisted methods. Please send us (seung_yeon.kang@uconn.edu) your CV and transcript if interested. Thanks!  
    Posted on January 31, 2024
  • Kang group presentations at SPIE Photonics West 2024
    Paper 12898-30: Single step DLW fabrication of electrically focus tunable (ETF) thin metallic lens in a dielectric medium 30 January 2024,  11:20 AM – 11:40 AM PST | Moscone Center, Room 303 (Level 3 South)   Paper 12872-10: 3D multi-material printing with light: advanced digital light processing and femtosecond laser stereolithography (Invited Paper) 30 January 2024 , […]
    Posted on January 5, 2024
  • Kang group wins a DOE funded competition!
    Congratulations to our PhD student Md Abdul Aziz who’s working on the PEC energy harvesting technology! Our team (PECWEC) won the First Round of Prize Focused on Novel Wave Energy Technologies. https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/articles/doe-announces-winners-first-round-prize-focused-novel-wave-energy-technologies
    Posted on November 7, 2023

Contact the Kang Group

Phone: (860) 486-5934
seung_yeon.kang@uconn.edu
Address: University of Connecticut
Engineering Science Building #511
181 Auditorium Rd.
Storrs CT 06269