Mountaineer at the Summit

The nanoPROBE lab

Jian Cui Lab

Jian’s team synthesizes novel classes of nanomaterials with unique chemical and optical properties. We aim to apply these materials towards the development of unconventional approaches to biological imaging and sensing.

Jian’s team synthesizes novel classes of nanomaterials with unique chemical and optical properties. We aim to apply these materials towards the development of unconventional approaches to biological imaging and sensing.

About our Research

The most compelling characteristic of nanoscale materials is the emergence of different physical phenomena upon the shrinking of dimensions. We are interested in exploiting these unique properties of the nanoscopic world to develop a new toolkit that will help us understand, and perhaps ultimately control, biological systems.

We are a diverse team of researchers asking interdisciplinary questions, and engaging in multidisciplinary approaches, in the hopes of achieving transdisciplinary outcomes (transcending disciplines).(1)

Creative combinations of engineered nanomaterials and nano-optical detection allow us to develop new platforms for measuring, and potentially controlling, biological processes in previously unexplored ways.

Publications

Opt. Commun. 596:132519 (2025)

Ma, Q. ; Ma, R. ; Yu, H. ; Jiang, X. ; Zhou, Q. ; Wang, X. ; Liang, X. ; Ni, K.

Inverse design of mode-locked fiber lasers based on conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN).
Nat. Methods, DOI: 10.1038/s41592-025-02694-3 (2025)

Ma, R. ; Santino, L.M. ; Chobola, T. ; Armbrust, N. ; Geilenkeuser, J. ; Sukumaran, S. ; Jing, Z. ; Levkina, A. ; Ridderbeek, K. ; Peng, T. ; Truong, D.J.J. ; Doll, S. ; Westmeyer, G.G. ; Cui, J.

A telescopic microscope equipped with a quanta image sensor for live-cell bioluminescence imaging.
ACS App. Optic. Mat. 3, 676-688 (2025)

Zhou, J. ; Ridderbeek, K. ; Zou, P. ; Naden, A.B. ; Gaussmann, S. ; Song, F. ; Falter-Braun, P. ; Kay, E.R. ; Sattler, M. ; Cui, J.

Modular nanoparticle platform for solution-phase optical sensing of protein-protein interactions.
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 13, 4145-4151 (2022)

Cocina, A. ; Brechbühler, R. ; Vonk, S.J.W. ; Cui, J. ; Rossinelli, A.A. ; Rojo, H. ; Rabouw, F.T. ; Norris, D.J.

Nanophotonic approach to study excited-state dynamics in semiconductor nanocrystals.
ACS Photonics 9, 630-640 (2022)

Aellen, M. ; Rossinelli, A.A. ; Keitel, R.C. ; Brechbühler, R. ; Antolinez, F.V. ; Rodrigo, S.G. ; Cui, J. ; Norris, D.J.

Role of gain in Fabry-Pérot surface plasmon polariton lasers.
Opt. Lett. 47, 730-733 (2022)

Ma, R. ; Yu, H. ; Ma, Q. ; Zhou, Q. ; Ni, K.

Angular velocity measurement with wide range based on dual-comb Sagnac interferometer.
J. Phys. Chem. C. 125, 21550-21558 (2021)

Höfler, M.V. ; Hoinka, N. ; Schäfer, T. ; Horn, M. ; Aussenac, F. ; Fuhrmann-Lieker, T. ; Gutmann, T.

Light amplification materials based on biopolymers doped with dye molecules - structural insights from 15N and 13C solid-state dynamic nuclear polarization.
Nano Lett. 21, 8952–8959 (2021)

Keitel, R.C. ; Aellen, M. ; Feber, B.L. ; Rossinelli, A.A. ; Meyer, S.A. ; Cui, J. ; Norris, D.J.

Active mode switching in plasmonic microlasers by spatial control of optical gain.
ACS Nano 13, 9048-9056 (2019)

Antolinez, F.V. ; Winkler, J.M. ; Rohner, P. ; Kress, S.J.P. ; Keitel, R.C. ; Kim, D.K. ; Marques-Gallego, P. ; Cui, J. ; Rabouw, F.T. ; Poulikakos, D. ; Norris, D.J.

Defect-tolerant plasmonic elliptical resonators for long-range energy transfer.

Contact PioneerCampus

Portrait Jian Cui_freigestellt
Jian Cui

PI "The nanoPROBE lab", Helmholtz Pioneer Campus

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