Welcome to my webpage! My name is Yun Kai, or 凯韵 pronounced as Kaiyun. I work as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Nelson Group at MIT. My work encompasses laser optics,
high-pressure physics, nuclear engineering, and ultrafast spectroscopies. Outside of the lab, I like hiking, going out with friends, and movies. This website is not just about me, it is also about you, as I am trying to create a compact dynamic high-pressure lab for collaborative works. You can consider my method as a benchtop alternative to national labs. Our formular for collaborative works is:
“your samples + our high-pressure shock setup + MD and hydrocode simulations = promising results”.
Scientific background: Megabar (100 GPa) high-pressure has a profound impact on material properties such as mechanical, electronic and magnetic properties. High pressure can transform materials between insulators and superconductors, amorphous and crystalline solids, ionic and covalent compounds, as well as between highly reactive and inert substances. High-pressure research can be classified into two main approaches: static and dynamic high pressure. Static high-pressure investigations are commonly conducted using diamond anvil cells (DACs). Dynamic high-pressure research relies on projectiles launched by gas guns, or high-power laser ablation. It is worth highlighting that static Mbar pressure is accessible to smaller university-based laboratories, but the same level of accessibility does not apply to dynamic Mbar. The Mbar and 10 Mbar pressure ranges have historically been limited to work at national laboratories and other large-scale user facilities. The main focus of my research is to address the lack of benchtop methods for dynamic Mbar research. We have recently breached the 1 Mbar barrier with an record-high efficiency of 10 GPa/mJ, i.e. each mJ laser energy generates 10 GPa pressure.
We target the potential applications in strain engineering, high-pressure synthesis, and ultimately fusion.
The sketch illustrates our focusing shock method designed to achieve pressures exceeding 100 GPa (1 Mbar) at the shock focus. My ultimate goal is to realize inertial confinement fusion on a benchtop.