Core Faculty Members

Prof. GAO Zhaoli
高兆理 教授
Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, CUHK

Area of Expertise: Electronic Biosensors, Two-dimensional Biosensing Materials

zlgao@cuhk.edu.hk
Tel: 3943 0496
Location: ERB1113

Lab webpage: https://zlgao.com/

Dr. Gao completed his B.Eng. and Ph.D. both in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Since 2014, he has been a Post-doctoral Researcher in the Nano/Bio Interface Center and Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. In Oct 2019, Dr. Gao joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as an Assistant Professor, and established the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory (MDL).

2014 PhD, Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
2010 MPhil, Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
2008 BEng, Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

· Development of electronic biosensors based on two-dimensional (2D) materials to understand complex biological systems
· Translation of biosensing devices into biomedical applications in early disease diagnosis, point-of-care testing, and wearable health monitoring
· Strain- and defect-engineering in atomically thin materials and their van der Waals heterostructures for next-generation electronic biosensors.

BMEG3101 Medical Instrumentation & Design
BMEG5760 Bioelectronics and Nanotechnology

Editorial board member of PLoS ONE

Scalable Chemical Vapor Deposited Graphene Field-Effect Transistors for Bio/Chemical assay Rajesh, Z. Gao, A. T. C. Johnson, N. Puri, A. Mulchandani, and D. K. Aswal, Applied Physics Reviews, vol. 8, p. 011311, 2021

The C-terminus of the mu opioid receptor is critical in G protein interaction as demonstrated by a novel graphene biosensor C. Wen, B. Selling, A. Yeliseev, J. Xi, J. M. Perez-Aguilar, Z. Gao, J. G. Saven, A. T. C. Johnson, and R. Liu, IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 21, pp. 5758-5762, 2021

Recent Advances in the Properties and Synthesis of Bilayer Graphene and Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Z.Gao*, M-Q. Zhao*, M.M.A. Ashik, and A. T. C. Johnson*, Journal of Physics: Materials, vol. 3, p. 042003, 2020

Controlled Doping of Graphene by Means of Impurity Charge Screening Via a Polarized Ferroelectric Polymer K.S. Figueroa, N.J. Pinto, S.V. Mandyam, M-Q Zhao, C. Wen, P.M. Das, Z. Gao, M. Drndić, and A. T. C. Johnson, Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 127, p. 125503, 2020

Large-Area Epitaxial Growth of Curvature-Stabilized ABC Trilayer Graphene Z. Gao*, S. Wang, J. Berry, Q. Zhang, J. Gebhardt, W.M. Parkin, J. Avila, H. Yi, C. Chen, S. Hurtado-Parra, M. Drndić, A. M. Rappe, D. J. Srolovitz, J. M. Kikkawa, Z. Luo, M. C. Asensio, F. Wang*, and A. T. C. Johnson*, Nature Communications, vol. 11, p. 546, 2020

Graphene transistor arrays functionalized with genetically engineered antibody fragments for Lyme disease diagnosis Z. Gao, P. Ducos, H. Ye, J. Zauberman, A. Sriram, X. Yang, Z. Wang, M.W. Mitchell, D. Lekkas, D. Brisson, and A.T.C. Johnson, 2D Materials, vol. 7, p. 024001, 2020

Controlled Growth of Large-Area Bilayer Tungsten Diselenides with Lateral P-N Junctions S. V. Mandyam, M. Q. Zhao, P. M. Das, Q. Zhang, C. C. Price, Z. Gao, V. B. Shenoy, M. Drndić, and A. T. C. Johnson, ACS Nano, vol. 13, pp. 10490-10498, 2019

Origin of Nanoscale Friction Contrast between Supported Graphene, MoS2, and a Graphene/MoS2 Heterostructure M. R. Vazirisereshk, H. Ye, A. O. Roza, Z. Ye, M. Zhao, Z. Gao, A. T. C. Johnson, E. R. Johnson, R. W. Carpick, and A. Martini, Nano Letters, vol. 19, pp. 5496-5505, 2019

Detection of Sub-fM DNA with Target Recycling and Self-Assembly Amplification on Graphene Field Effect Biosensors Z. Gao, H. Xia, J. Zauberman, M. Tomaiuolo, J. Ping, Q. Zhang, P. Ducos, H. Ye, S. Wang, X. Yang, F. Lubna, Z. Luo, L. Ren, and A. T. C. Johnson, Nano Letters, vol. 18, pp. 3509-3515, 2018 (Reported by Penn Today and The Graphene Council)

Crystalline Bilayer Graphene with Preferential Stacking from Ni-Cu Gradient Alloy Z. Gao, Q. Zhang, C. H. Naylor, Y. Kim, I. H. Abidi, J. Ping, P. Ducos, J. Zauberman, M.-Q. Zhao, A. M. Rappe, Z. Luo, L. Ren, and A. T. C. Johnson, ACS Nano, vol. 12, pp. 2275-2282, 2018

Modular Functionalization of Crystalline Graphene by Recombinant Proteins: A Nanoplatform for Probing Biomolecules A. Tyagi, X. Liu, I. H. Abidi, Z. Gao, B. M. Park, X. Zeng, X. Ou, A. A. Cagang, M. Zhuang, M. D. Hossain, K. Zhang, L. T. Weng, F. Sun, and Z. Luo, Nanoscales, vol. 10, pp. 22572-22582, 2018

New Approach to Unveiling Individual Atomic Layers of 2D Materials and Their Heterostructures I. H. Abidi, L.-T. Weng, C. P. J. Wong, A. Tyagi, L. Gan, Y. Ding, M. Li, Z. Gao, R. Xue, M. D. Hossain, M. Zhuang, X. Ou, and Z. Luo, Chemistry of Materials, vol. 30, pp. 1718-1728, 2018

Recoil Effect and Photoemission Splitting of Trions in Monolayer MoS2 Q. Zhang, C. H. Naylor, Z. Gao, R. Wu, I. H. Abidi, M.-Q. Zhao, Y. Ding, A. A. Cagang, M. Zhuang, X. Ou, and Z. Luo, ACS Nano, vol. 11, pp. 10808-10815, 2017

Scalable Graphene Aptasensors for Drug Quantification R. Vishnubhotla, J. Ping, Z. Gao, A. Lee, O. Saouaf, A. Vrudhula, and A. T. C. Johnson, AIP Advances, vol. 7, p. 115111, 2017

Synthesis and Physical Properties of Phase-Engineered Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayer Heterostructures C. H. Naylor, W. M. Parkin, Z. Gao, J. Berry, S. Zhou, Q. Zhang, J. B. McClimon, L. Z. Tan, C. E. Kehayias, M.-Q. Zhao, R. S. Gona, R. W. Carpick, A. M. Rappe, D. J. Srolovitz, M. Drndic, and A. T. C. Johnson, ACS Nano, vol. 11, pp. 8619-8627, 2017

pH Sensing Properties of Flexible, Bias-Free Graphene Microelectrodes in Complex Fluids: From Phosphate Buffer Solution to Human Serum J. Ping, J. E. Blum, R. Vishnubhotla, A. Vrudhula, C. H. Naylor, Z. Gao, J. G. Saven, and A. T. C. Johnson, Small, vol. 13. 2017

Large-Area Synthesis of High-Quality Monolayer 1T’-WTe2 Flakes C. Naylor, W. Parkin, Z. Gao, H Kang, M. Noyan, R. Wexler, L. Tan, Y. Kim, C. Kehayias, F. Streller, Y. Zhou, R. Carpick, Z. Luo, Y. Park, A. Rappe, M. Drndic, J. Kikkawa, and A. T. C. Johnson, 2D Materials, vol. 4, pp. 021008, 2017 (Highlighted by Nature Nanotechnology)

Scalable Production of Sensor Arrays Based on High-Mobility Hybrid Graphene Field Effect Transistors Z. Gao, H. Kang, C. H. Naylor, F. Streller, P. Ducos, M. D. Serrano, J. Ping, J. Zauberman, Rajesh, R. W. Carpick, Y.-J. Wang, Y. W. Park, Z. Luo, L. Ren, and A. T. C. Johnson, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, vol. 8, pp. 27546-27552, 2016

Genetically Engineered Antibody Functionalized Platinum Nanoparticles Modified CVD-Graphene Nanohybrid Transistor for the Detection of Breast Cancer Biomarker, HER3 Rajesh, Z. Gao, R. Vishnubhotla, P. Ducos, M. D. Serrano, J. Ping, M. K. Robinson, and A. T. C. Johnson, Advanced Materials Interfaces, vol. 3, p. 1600124, 2016

Monolayer Single-Crystal 1T’-MoTe2 Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition Exhibits Weak Antilocalization Effect C. H. Naylor, W. M. Parkin, J. Ping, Z. Gao, Y. R. Zhou, Y. Kim, F. Streller, R. W. Carpick, A. M. Rappe, M. Drndić, J. M. Kikkawa, and A. T. C. Johnson, Nano Letters, vol. 16, pp. 4297-4304, 2016

Growth of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube Arrays on Al Substrates through Controlled Diffusion of Catalyst Z. Gao, X. Zhang, K. Zhang, and M. M. F. Yuen, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, vol. 119, pp. 15636-15642, 2015

A Novel Method for the Fabrication of a High-Density Carbon Nanotube Microelectrode Array A. Khalifa, Z. Gao, A. Bermak, Y. Wangi, and L. Chan, Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research, vol. 5, pp. 1-7, 2015

Exceptional thermal interface properties of a three-dimensional graphene foam X. Zhang, K. K. Yeung, Z. Gao, J. Li, H. Sun, H. Xu, K. Zhang, M. Zhang, Z. Chen, M. M. F. Yuen, and S. Yang, Carbon, vol. 66, pp. 201-209, 2014

Thermal Chemical Vapor Deposition Grown Graphene Heat Spreader for Thermal Management of Hot Spots Z. Gao, Y. Zhang, Y. Fu, M. M. F. Yuen and J. Liu, Carbon, vol. 61, pp. 342-348, 2013 (Reported by SciTechDaily, Electronics Cooling, ScienceDaily and Techfragments)

Highly conductive die attach adhesive from percolation control and its applications in light-emitting device thermal management X. Zhang, K. Zhang, M. Zhang, C. Yang, H. Sun, Z. Gao, M. M. F. Yuen, and S. Yang, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 102, pp. 014101-5, 2013

Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube Thermal Interface Material on Aluminum Alloy Substrates with Low Pressure CVD Z. Gao, K. Zhang, and M. M. F. Yuen, Nanotechnology, vol. 22, p. 265611, 2011