Peidong Yang

Peidong Yang received a B.A. (1993) from the University of Science and Technology in China and a Ph.D. (1997) from Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral fellow (1997–1999) at the University of California at Santa Barbara before joining the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he is currently the S. K. and Angela Chan Distinguished Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry. Peidong Yang is an inorganic chemist transforming the field of semiconductor nanowires and nanowire photonics and enabling wide-ranging practical applications. Nanowires are very small wires at the nano scale—so small that they behave differently, with quantum effects. Yang has led major breakthroughs in nanowire photonics over the last decade, from the initial development of nanowire lasers to the characterization of optical routing in nanowire assemblies and nanowire solar cells.