Faxian Xiu joined Iowa State’s electrical and computer engineering department this fall as an assistant professor. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in materials science and engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2000 and 2002, respectively, and his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California, Riverside, in 2006.
From 2007 to 2008, Xiu worked as a senior research scientist at Z N Technology, where he developed zinc oxide (ZnO) and gallium nitride (GaN) optoelectronic devices. In 2008, he joined the electrical engineering department at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a staff research associate. In this position, he led a research group on molecular beam epitaxy growth of gallium arsenide (GaAs), silicon/germanium (Si/Ge), and topological insulators. Xiu also has worked with two major research centers in California since 2008: the Center on Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics and the Western Institute of Nanoelectronics.
Xiu has been published in more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and has authored three invited book chapters and more than 10 invited papers. He holds five patents, as well as numerous honors and awards.
His current research interests include spintronic and nanoelectric devices based on the manganese-doped germanium quantum dots and topological insulators. At Iowa State, he plans to dedicate his research efforts to the study of magnetic properties of traditional semiconductors, in hopes of developing practical spintronic devices that utilize the spin properties of carriers in addition to their charge properties. He also plans to explore the magnetism in doped topological insulator thin films and nanostructures. Xiu is a member of the electromagnetics, microwave, and nondestructive evaluation research group, and the materials, devices, and circuits strategic research area.