Lee Chih-Kung


Lee Chih-Kung is a Taiwanese applied physicist and engineer. He is a distinguished professor of electronics engineering at National Taiwan University.

Early life and education

Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and has three brothers: Howard, Adam, and Ben. His parents were Lee Wen-hsiung and Lee Shu-lien.
After high school, Lee graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1981. As an undergraduate, he won two engineering contests for papers on the fire protection of high-rise buildings and the analysis of dams.
After completing two years of military service in the Republic of China Air Force, Lee pursued graduate studies in the United States on a fellowship at Cornell University, where he earned a Master of Science in 1984 under Yih-Hsing Pao and his Ph.D. in theoretical mechanics, applied mechanics, and applied physics in 1987. As a doctoral student at Cornell, he developed piezoelectric modal sensors and actuators. His dissertation, completed under Professor Francis C. Moon, was titled, "Piezoelectric laminates for torsional and bending modal control: theory and experiment".

Career

In 1987, Lee joined IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, as a research staff member and later as a staff to the IBM ARC Laboratory Director. His research work at IBM was primarily on the interdisciplinary areas related to magnetic disk drives, optoelectronic systems, metrology systems and piezoelectric systems. He was awarded an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for his work on reducing the thermal track mis-registration of the 3.5 inch, 320 MB, IBM 0661 hard disk file, a highly profitable commercial product at that time. He received two distinguished Invention Awards for his inventions and patents on laser encoders, nanometer fly height measurement systems, piezoelectric strain rate gages, and acceleration rate sensors for early shock arrival.

Research interests

In 1994, he joined the faculty of National Taiwan University’s Institute of Applied Mechanics where he co-founded the Nano-Bio-MEMS research group. He is a well-recognized expert in the areas of flexible structure control, shock sensing, and sensor development due to his research work on distributed piezoelectric sensors and actuators. He has directed many research projects in the areas of ultra-high performance laser Doppler interferometers, laser encoders, sphere ellipsometry analyzers, curved distributed piezoelectric sensors/actuators, dot matrix writers, diffractive optical elements/systems, and laser writers. His specialty lies in systems integration which combines mechanics, optics, electronics, semiconductors, mechanisms, metrology, and interface systems to create new innovative systems. He has many research papers in various fields and has over 110 patents, including various technology transfers to industry. He has teamed up with other departments and research teams at other Universities, to focus on topics in medical care, chemical research, electronic engineering and biotechnology. Some results of their research efforts include the Sparkle holographic mastering system, AVID interferometer/vibrometer, an ellipsometer, an ultrasonic sensor with anisotropic beam pattern, SARS No. 1 antivirus compound, a flexible electret speaker, etc., all of which have been technology transferred to industry. The AVID interferometer/vibrometer won Photonic Spectra's Circle of Excellence Award in 1998 for one of the top 25 optoelectronic systems worldwide, the first time a Taiwan company won the award.

Specialties

Optoelectronic and Piezoelectric Systems, MEMS & Nano-Systems, Optoelectronic Systems Design, Precision Metrology, Automation Technology, Biochip Systems, Technology Management.

Careers

Honors and awards