14. Multidimensional optical singularities and their applications
Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Christina M. Spaegele*, and Federico Capasso Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering (2026).
About PI
Education
- Ph.D. Applied Physics, Harvard University, 2023
- Thesis: Sculpting the dark: Singularity engineering with metasurfaces
- GPA: 4.0/4.0
- B.S. Physics, California Institute of Technology, 2017
- Thesis: Revolution in large-area curved surface lithography: Nanofilm sculpting by thermocapillary modulation
- GPA: 4.3/4.3, rank 1/254
- Caltech Cambridge Scholar, Cambridge University, 2016
- Class: First
Work experience
- Sep 2026 - Present: Alice Y. Hung Assistant Professor in Science and Technology and Nanyang Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, and Principal Investigator, Bioinformatics Institute, A*STAR
- NTU department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
- Nov 2023 - Aug 2026: Schmidt Science Fellow, Stanford Medicine
- Advisor: Prof. Steven Chu.
- Developing low cost, high efficiency intracellular delivery techniques for in vivo diagnostics.
- Sep 2018 - Sep 2023: Doctoral Researcher, Harvard University
- Advisor: Prof. Federico Capasso
- Investigated counter-intuitive fundamental behavior of structured light fields containing optical singularities (“dark” regions of light).
- Achieved a flat lens that uses extremely deep and narrow holes, the highest aspect ratio nanostructures for wavefront shaping as of publication.
- Mentored an undergraduate (now PhD candidate, University of Toronto) and a high school student (now Harvard undergraduate).
- Jan 2018 - Jun 2018: Research Assistant, Bioprocessing Technology Institute, A*STAR
- Advisor: Prof. Shireen Goh (now at SUTD, Singapore)
- Modeled multiphase computational fluid dynamics for inertial focusing in dense particle-laden flows.
- Jul 2016 - Dec 2017: Research Engineer, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, A*STAR
- Advisor: Prof. Wong Liang Jie (now at NTU, Singapore)
- Numerically simulated strong-field light-matter interactions in laser-based particle acceleration.
- Jan 2015 - Jun 2017: Undergraduate Researcher, California Institute of Technology
- Advisor: Prof. Sandra Troian.
- Fabricated microlens arrays in polymer with spatially-varying surface tension.
Selected Awards
- Lindau Young Scientist (2019).
- A*STAR Roll of Honor (2017).
- California Institute of Technology awards:
- Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award (2017), American Physical Society.
- International Physics Olympiad Silver Medal (2010).
Fellowships and Grants
- Named professorship: Alice Y. Hung Assistant Professor in Science and Technology (2026-2030)
- Start-up grant: Nanyang Assistant Professorship, Nanyang Technological University (2026-2030)
- US$220,000: Schmidt Science Fellowship, Schmidt Sciences (2024-2026)
- SGD$20,000: NUS Development Grant, National University of Singapore (2024-2025)
- 8 years full funding: National Science Scholarship, A*STAR Singapore (2013-2023)
Publications
13. All-Glass 100 mm Diameter Visible Metalens for Imaging the Cosmos
Joon-Suh Park*, Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Arman Amirzhan, Hyukmo Kang, Karlene Karrfalt, Daewook Kim, Joel Leger, Augustine Urbas, Marcus Ossiander, Zhaoyi Li, and Federico Capasso ACS Nano 18(4), 3187-3198 (2024).
12. Time reversal differentiation of FDTD for photonic inverse design
Rui Jie Tang*, Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Marcus Ossiander, Xinghui Yin, Federico Capasso, Time reversal differentiation of FDTD for photonic inverse design, ACS Photonics 10(12), 4140-4150 (2023).
11. Helicity and Polarization Gradient Optical Trapping in Evanescent Fields
Jinsheng Lu, Vincent Ginis, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Federico Capasso, Helicity and Polarization Gradient Optical Trapping in Evanescent Fields, Physical Review Letters 131(14), 143803 (2023).
10. Polarization Multi-Image Synthesis with Birefringent Metasurfaces
Dean Hazineh*, Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Qi Guo, Federico Capasso, Todd Zickler, Polarization Multi-Image Synthesis with Birefringent Metasurfaces, IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP) (2023).
9. Topologically protected optical polarization singularities in four-dimensional space
Christina M. Spaegele, Michele Tamagnone, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Marcus Ossiander, Maryna L. Meretska, Federico Capasso, Topologically protected optical polarization singularities in four-dimensional space, Science Advances 9(24) (2023).
8. Point singularity array with metasurfaces
Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Joon-Suh Park*, Dmitry Kazakov, Christina M. Spaegele, Ahmed H. Dorrah, Maryna L. Meretska, Federico Capasso, Point singularity array with metasurfaces, Nature Communications 14, 3237 (2023).
7. Extreme ultraviolet metalens by vacuum guiding
Marcus Ossiander*, Maryna L. Meretska*, Hana K. Hampel*, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Nico Knefz, Thomas Jauk, Federico Capasso, Martin Schultze, Extreme ultraviolet metalens by vacuum guiding, Science 380(6640), 59-63 (2023).
6. All-optical tunability of metalenses permeated with liquid crystals
Giovanna Palermo, Andrew Lininger, Alexa Guglielmelli, Loredana Ricciardi, Giuseppe Nicoletta, Antonio De Luca, Joon-Suh Park, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Maryna L. Meretska, Federico Capasso*, Giuseppe Strangi*, All-optical tunability of metalenses permeated with liquid crystals, ACS Nano 16(10), 16539–16548 (2022).
5. A high aspect ratio inverse-designed holey metalens
Soon Wei Daniel Lim*, Maryna L. Meretska*, Federico Capasso, A High Aspect Ratio Inverse-Designed Holey Metalens, Nano Letters 21(20) (2021).
4. Engineering phase and polarization singularity sheets
Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Joon-Suh Park, Maryna L. Meretska, Ahmed H. Dorrah, Federico Capasso, Engineering phase and polarization singularity sheets, Nature Communications 12, 4190 (2021).
3. On-chip optical tweezers based on freeform optics
Shaoliang Yu*, Jinsheng Lu*, Vincent Ginis, Simon Kheifets, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Min Qiu, Tian Gu, Juejun Hu, Federico Capasso, On-chip optical tweezers based on freeform optics, Optica 8(3), 409-414 (2021).
2. HLA correlations with clinical phenotypes and risk of metabolic comorbidities in Singapore Chinese psoriasis patients
Meixin Shen, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Eugene S. Tan, Hazel H. Oon, Ee Chee Ren, HLA Correlations with Clinical Phenotypes and Risk of Metabolic Comorbidities in Singapore Chinese Psoriasis Patients, Molecular Diagnosis & Therapy 23, 751-760 (2019).
1. Non-closed-packed pore arrays through one-step breath figure self-assembly and reversal
Aaron Zhenghui Thong, Soon Wei Daniel Lim, Aniq Ahsan, Glen Tai Wei Goh, Jianwei Xu, Jia Min Chin, Non-closed-packed pore arrays through one-step breath figure self-assembly and reversal, Chemical Science 5, 1375-1382 (2014).
Teaching
Open-sourced class notes and textbook summaries available in Course Notes.