Prof. Guo has been a worldwide leader in nanoimprinting, nanostructure engineering, applications and manufacturing, , while exploring a range of associated technology of interest to companies around the world.
Jay Guo has been named the Emmett Leith Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, effective May 1, 2025.
Guo is a world-renowned researcher who has made significant contributions to a wide variety of areas, including nanoimprinting, nanophotonics, and nanomanufacturing. He is also a dedicated educator and a leader in the professional community.
Guo demonstrated the first Si nano-transistors in 1997 by applying nanoimprinting. At the time, nanoimprint lithography (NIL) was in its infancy, having been demonstrated only two years earlier. It offered a higher-resolution and more cost-effective alternative to DUV photolithography.
Guo demonstrated scalable roll-to-roll (R2RNIL) in 2008, and applied it to the fabrication of nano wiregrid conductors for flexible OLED and OPV. Soon after, his team further developed R2R technology to include roll-based fabrication of optical metamaterials, flexible organic solar cells and OLEDs, and other continuous-based patterning technologies.
NIL is becoming a key technology for fabricating deep-nanoscale silicon electronics, as well as emerging devices such as flat optics and augmented reality glasses. 2025 marks 30 years of NIL, an occasion celebrated with NIL Industrial Day 2025, and The 24th International Conference on Nanoimprint and Nanoprint Technology (NNT 2025); Guo is a program co-chair of NNT 2025.
Guo has also made seminal contributions in the design and novel applications of optical thin films, most notably in developing environmentally sustainable structural colors and indium-free flexible transparent conductors. The former led to many applications, e.g. decorative colored solar cells, and the latter led to the intriguing finding of highly conductive layers on plastic that can be more transparent than the plastic substrate itself. His lab exploited the application of deep learning in the design of optical thin film structures with a technique called OptoGPT, which allows manufacturers of solar cells, telescopes, and other optical equipment to design devices more quickly.
In related work, Guo and his team developed an OLED electrode that could help extend the battery life of smartphones and laptops; an environmentally-friendly chrome-like finish for cars that supports wireless sensing technologies for vehicle safety; and colorful semi-transparent solar cells.
Guo’s team also pioneered the use of integrated polymer microring resonators for ultrasound detection; the technology was licensed to a tech startup. They invented a technique called “photoacoustic lens,” taking the advantage of super-absorbing camouflage CNTs they discovered in 2011, and developed an “invisible scalpel” that can cut biological tissues with high-precision down to single cell level. The invisible scalpel also enabled new nozzle-free printing of functional electronic materials and devices.
In 2024, Guo and former students achieved multi-channel metaholograms. These metaholograms rely on the nano-fabrication technologies that they developed over the years, while demonstrating phase control of sub-wavelength optical elements.
Metaholograms are based on nanofabricated structures called metasurfaces, which can manipulate light in unusual ways that are not possible with natural materials. Guo’s metaholograms can switch between displayed and hidden images that emanate from the same nano-patterned structure. Their advantages over traditional holograms include enhanced image quality, compact size, and expanded field of view.
“Metaholograms are considered as one of the next-generation display technologies and have exhibited great potential in an array of applications,” wrote Guo and his collaborators in the paper published in eLIGHT. These applications include augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) displays, image encryption, and information storage.
“This achievement is a tribute to Prof. Emmett Leith’s legacy for his groundbreaking work of modern holography,” said Guo.
Worldwide interest in Guo’s research led him to co-found two companies: Zenithnano and Inlight Technology Co. Zenithnano applies flexible ultrathin film technology to intelligent electronics, green energy, and health. Inlight Technology specializes in nanostructural color technology, with applications in vehicle coating, ceramic coloring, cosmetic enhancement, and colored building-integrated photovoltaics.
As an educator, Guo has shown extraordinary care with graduate students and their research, while also devoting significant effort in creating new courses for undergraduate students. He maintains an active research group, already graduating 45 doctoral students, and will take on students who come to him seeking an advisor somewhat late in their academic career.
Guo teaches a wide range of existing courses at the graduate and undergraduate level, in addition to actively developing new courses. Over the past three years, he co-developed two new courses in the quantum area for undergraduate students: Introduction to Quantum Information Science and Engineering, and Introduction to Quantum Information Technologies.
Guo is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Micro and Nano Manufacturing, and sits on the Editorial Boards of Advanced Optical Material, and Opto-Electronic Science. He has served on the program committees and as Program Chair for the International Conference on Nanoimprint and Nanoprint Technology, and served twice as Symposium Chair for Materials Research Society Spring and Fall meetings.
Guo is Director of the Macromolecular Science and Engineering program and holds courtesy appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics. He received the Nanoimprint Pioneer Award, the College of Engineering Wise-Najafi Prize for Engineering Excellence in the Miniature World, and the Monroe-Brown Research Excellence Award. He is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of Optica.
About Emmett Leith (1927-2005)
Former ECE faculty member Emmett Leith was recognized throughout the world for his groundbreaking experimental and theoretical work in the area of optics. He is best known for his contribution to modern holography, the science of making three-dimensional “photographs” without lenses.
His research in holography grew out of his work on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) at the University of Michigan Willow Run Laboratories, which for many years was shrouded under cover of highly classified research. After reading about Dennis Gabor’s theoretical writings on holography, he enticed Juris Upatnieks, a scientist who had just joined the Willow Run lab in 1960, to work with him. His goal was to turn Gabor’s theory into a practical reality.
Leith and Upatnieks introduced 2D display holography to the world in Fall 1963. It was initially publicized as lensless photography because a lens was not used between the object and the photographic plate. After making further refinements, helped along by a newly developed laser to get the desired coherence of light, they presented their 3D hologram of a train at a 1964 meeting of the Optical Society of America.
“A line of optical scientists and engineers wound down the hallways of the hotel as they patiently waited to see the 3D images that were absolutely unprecedented in their realism and accuracy,” wrote Stephen Benton in The Art and Science of Holography: A Tribute to Emmett Leith and Yuri Denisyuk.
Leith was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1979 by President Carter. Leith and Upatnieks were the first recipients of the R.W. Wood Prize, both were awarded the Inventor of the Year Award – presented by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and they received the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Holley Medal. Leith was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and was awarded the Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America, the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Award, and The International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) Gold Medal. He was a fellow of the IEEE and Optical Society of America.
Original news by Catherine June, EECS