Zhurun (Judy) Ji
Research Interests
Professor Zhurun (Judy) Ji’s group explores the intersection of quantum sensing, quantum materials, and quantum devices, to drive breakthroughs in both fundamental science and next-generation technologies.
Our work is centered around two major directions:
- We develop new scanning probe techniques (RFlexiscope), using microwave techniques to study the local electrical properties and noise phenomena of quantum materials, especially two-dimensional materials. With these methods, we study quantum phenomena such as electron topology and correlation, with the aim to discover and understand macroscopic quantum phenomena.
- Using non-local spectroscopic techniques, we study coherence properties in emerging materials. Our goal is to gain insight into quantum phase transitions, collective excitations, and apply these insights in designing next-generation solid-state quantum circuits.
Integrating these pursuits, Ji group aims to drive the quantum understanding of quantum phenomena and accelerate the realization of practical quantum devices.
Biographical Sketch
Zhurun (Judy) Ji received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, class for the gifted youth, in 2015. She earned her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021. From 2021 to 2024, she was a Stanford Science Fellow and Urbanek-Chodorow Postdoc Fellow at Stanford University. She is now a Panofsky fellow at SLAC National Lab and will join MIT’s physics department at the end of 2025.
Awards & Honors
- 2024-2029 // Panofsky fellowship, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- 2022 // Boeing Quantum Creators Prize, Chicago Quantum Exchange
- 2021-2024 // Stanford Science Fellowship, Stanford University
- 2021-2023 // Urbanek-Chodorow Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University
- 2020 // Rising Stars in Physics, Princeton
- 2018 // Belton Graduate Fellowship Award, University of Pennsylvania
- 2014 // Most Exceptional Prize, Physics research competition, USTC
Key Publications
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Local probe of bulk and edge states in a fractional Chern insulator, Zhurun Ji*, Heonjoon Park*, Mark E Barber, Chaowei Hu, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Jiun-Haw Chu, Xiaodong Xu, Zhi-Xun Shen, Nature (2024)
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Opto-twistronic Hall effect in a three-dimensional spiral lattice, Zhurun Ji, Yuzhou Zhao, Yicong Chen, Ziyan Zhu, Yuhui Wang, Wenjing Liu, Gaurav Modi, Eugene J Mele, Song Jin, Ritesh Agarwal, Nature (2024)
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Photocurrent detection of the orbital angular momentum of light, Zhurun Ji, Wenjing Liu, Sergiy Krylyuk, Xiaopeng Fan, Zhifeng Zhang, Anlian Pan, Liang Feng, Albert Davydov, Ritesh Agarwal, Science (2020).
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Generation of helical topological exciton-polaritons, Wenjing Liu, Zhurun Ji, Yuhui Wang, Gaurav Modi, Minsoo Hwang, Biyuan Zheng, Volker J Sorger, Anlian Pan, Ritesh Agarwal, Science (2020).