Professor Hongjie Dai has relocated to HKU as a Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry with joint appointment in Materials Engineering and the School of Medicine. He is currently also the Jackson-Wood Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at Stanford University.

Professor Dai’s group has been a leader in the area of nanoscience, nanotechnology and nanomedicine. His work is highly interdisciplinary, bridging chemistry, physics, materials and biomedical sciences.

Over the years Professor Dai’s lab pioneered carbon based nanosciences including (1) CVD synthesis of carbon nanotubes and the first graphene nanoribbons, (2) ballistic CNT based field-effect transistors, CNT nanoelectronic sensors, (3) CNT based drug delivery and photothermal therapy, (4) graphene nanosheets based nanomedicine. 

Professor Dai’s group pioneered NIR-II/SWIR (Near-infrared-II/short wave infrared) biological imaging in 2009. 

In the renewable energy area, Professor Dai’s group devised ‘strongly coupled carbon-inorganic hybrid materials’ by growing electrocatalyst and battery material on CNTs and graphene in solution phase, leading to advanced electrochemical properties for water splitting, O2 and H2 reduction and batteries. 

 Professor Dai’s group invented rechargeable Al battery, and Li/Cl2 and Na/Cl2 batteries.