Hongkun Park


Hongkun Park is Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He received his BS in chemistry at Seoul National University in 1990, and his PhD in physical chemistry at Stanford University in 1996 under Richard Zare. From 1996 to 1999 he was a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under A. Paul Alivisatos and Paul McEuen.
His current research focuses on optoelectronics and plasmonics using nanostructures, nano-bio interfacing, and neuro-electronic devices.

Work

Nanometer-sized materials represent a natural size limit of the miniaturization trend of current technology, and they exhibit physical and chemical properties significantly different from their bulk counterparts. The research interest of Hongkun Park lies in developing detailed physical and chemical understanding of these nanostructures and applying this knowledge to possible technological applications. Current research efforts toward these general goals are centered on two areas: quantum optoplasmonics and nano-bio interfacing.
The goal of his quantum optoplasmonics effort is to develop solid-state photonic, optoelectronic, and plasmonic devices that work all the way down to the single photon level. Some examples of these devices include single-photon transistors, electrically driven surface plasmon lasers, and on-chip plasmon sources and detectors. These devices, whose operation is critically dependent upon quantum mechanical principles, may enable all-optical computing and provide the basis for solid-state quantum information processing.
The goal of his nano–bio interfacing effort is to develop new nanoscale tools for interrogating living cells and cell networks. He developed a vertical nanowire platform that can deliver diverse biological effectors into virtually any cell type, and is applying the platform to interrogate intracellular circuits that dictate the functions of primary immune cells. Using the same vertical nanowires, he also developed a highly scalable platform for recording and stimulating real-time dynamics of complex neuronal ensembles and is using this tool to study the inner workings of the brain. More recently, he developed a pipeline for single-cell transcriptomics that is applicable to a broad range of cell types. He is using it to study the cell-to-cell variability of immune, cancer, and neuron cells.
The goal of his quantum sensing effort is to develop ultra-sensitive magnetic, electric, and temperature sensors based on diamond color centers and use them to address various problems spanning condensed matter physics, molecular structural determination, and biological sensing.

Representative publications