Prof. Wen Hui (Sophia) Cheng

Alumni - Academic Faculty



Wen-Hui (Sophia) Cheng received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and pursed her Ph.D. from Caltech, all in Materials Science. During her Ph.D. research under the guidance of Prof. Harry Atwater, she focused on mesoscale design of photoelectrochemical fuel cells as part of the Joint Center of Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP). Afterward, she joined Professor Dionne’s group as TomKat Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. She has extensive experience with semiconductor nanofabrication and material characterization, in addition to optical simulations and device physics. She has made an integrated device for splitting water with sunlight to make hydrogen fuel, and also demonstrated a gas diffusion electrode for CO2 reduction to generate CO from solar energy, both with record efficiencies at the time. These efforts have been honored with the MRS graduate student silver award and the Dow sustainability innovation student challenge award. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. Her research interests include manipulating light to assist chemistry for energy application and engineering structure for optoelectronics as a material scientist.

Available Publications


Integrated Solar-Driven Device with a Front Surface Semitransparent Catalysts for Unassisted CO2 Reduction

Wen-Hui Cheng, Matthias H. Richter, Ralph Müller, Michael Kelzenberg, Sisir Yalamanchili, Phillip R. Jahelka, Andrea N. Perry, Pin Chieh Wu, Rebecca Saive, Frank Dimroth, Bruce S. Brunschwig, Thomas Hannappel, and Harry A. Atwater
Adv. Energy Mater. 2022, 12, 2201062 (2022)

X‑ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Resonant X‑ray Spectroscopy Investigations of Interactions between Thin Metal Catalyst Films and Amorphous Titanium Dioxide Photoelectrode Protection Layers

Matthias H. Richter, Wen-Hui Cheng, Ethan J. Crumlin, Walter S. Drisdell, Harry A. Atwater, Dieter Schmeißer, Nathan S. Lewis, and Bruce S. Brunschwig
Chem. Mater. 2021, 33, 1265−1275 (2021)

Unassisted Highly Selective Gas-Phase CO2 Reduction with a Plasmonic Au/p-GaN Photocatalyst Using H2O as an Electron Donor

Rengui Li, Wen-Hui Cheng, Matthias H. Richter, Joseph S. DuChene, Wenming Tian, Can Li, and Harry A. Atwater
ACS Energy Lett. 2021, 6, 1849−1856 (2021)

Hydrogen from Sunlight and Water: A Sideby- Side Comparison between Photoelectrochemical and Solar Thermochemical Water-Splitting Wen-Hui

Wen-Hui Cheng, Alberto de la Calle, Harry A. Atwater, Ellen B. Stechel, and Chengxiang Xiang
ACS Energy Lett. 2021, 6, 3096−3113 (2021)

Near-Infrared Active Metasurface for Dynamic Polarization Conversion

Pin Chieh Wu, Ruzan Sokhoyan, Ghazaleh Kafaie Shirmanesh, Wen-Hui Cheng, and Harry A. Atwater
Advanced Optical Materials (2021) - Metasurfaces