Dr. Wen Lei is a Professor, an ARC Future Fellow, the Program Chair of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and the Chair of the IEEE Western Australia Joint ESP Chapter (Electron Devices Society, Solid State Circuits Society, and Photonics Society), and and leads the Electronic Materials and Devices Research at Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Western Australia. His current research mainly focuses on semiconductor materials, devices and their system applications such as infrared detectors, lasers, solar cells and others. He has made a number of “first in the research field” breakthroughs such as strained superlattices for filtering defects in HgCdTe/CdTe materials, first MBE-grown HgCdSe infrared sensor, etc. He, together with his colleagues has demonstrated the first Australian-made prototype mid-wave HgCdTe infrared focal plane arrays with commercial format size. He holds a number of patents and has published 4 book chapters and more than 150 high profile papers in top journals with high impact factors (IFs) including 1x Applied Physics Reviews (IF=11.9), 1x Physical Review Letters (IF=8.1), 2x Advanced Materials (IF=27.4), 3x Advanced Functional Materials (IF=18.5), 6x Nano Letters (IF=10.8), 3x Small (IF=13), 1x Small Science (IF=11.1), 2x Laser & Photonic Reviews (IF=9.8), etc. His research has attracted strong interest from industry such as PlanarTECH and Aselsan which led to a number of ARC Linakge awards. He was awarded his prestigious ARC Future Fellowship in 2013 and ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2006. He also received several “Best Paper" Awards from IEEE journals and IEEE conferences, and was invited regularly to deliver plenary/keynote presentations at premium international conferences. He is also an associate editor/editorial board member of five international journals, a member of Scientific Advisory Board/Technical Program Committee/Organizing Committee for several international conferences and a regular reviewer for various international prestigious journals and funding agencies in Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, Israel, Romania and Hongkong.

For details about his research, please visit: www.rglei.altervista.org

For his research publications, please visit his Google Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UDxraXMAAAAJ&hl=en

PhD and postdoc opportunities are available in the areas of semiconductor materials and devices, especially those related to the current projects as below. Pls contact Dr. Wen Lei for details.

• Molecular Beam Epitaxy;
• Thin film infrared materials and sensors as well as their applications;
• Novel low-dimensional semiconductor optoelectronic materials and devices, including quantum dots, nanowires, and 2-Dimensional materials;
• Chemi/bio sensors for environmental monitoring applications;
• Energy conversion and storage materials and devices, including solar cells, thermoelectric devices, and battery.                                                          

Selected Funding received

1. Ultra-broadband photodetectors by hybridising graphene with Bi2O2Se nanoplates (2025), UWA RCA Project, Lead CI
2. National Atomic Layer Etching Facility  (2025), ARC LIEF Project, CI
3. Bandgap engineered bismuth chalcogenides for uncooled infrared detectors (2024-2027), ARC Linkage Project, Lead CI
4. National Facility for Performance Characterisation of Infrared Technologies (2023-2024), ARC LIEF Project, CI
5. Defect generation in hetero-epitaxy on lattice mismatched substrates (2020-2022), ARC Discovery Project, Lead CI
6. Advanced Multifunctional Electro-Opto-Magneto-Mechanical Analysis Platform (2020), ARC LIEF Project, CI
7. Turning sight into sound: Enabling the visually impaired to see with a multi-sensory headset (2019), UWA Research Impact Grants Scheme, CI
8. Defect engineering in MBE-grown HgCdTe (2018-2020), ARC Linkage Project, second CI
9. Bandgap engineered HgCdTe heterostructures on GaSb alternative substrates (2017-2019), ARC Discovery Project, second CI
10. National facility for characterisation of infrared imaging technologies (2017), ARC LIEF Project, CI
11. HgCdSe: A novel II-VI semiconductor material for next generation infrared technologies (2013-2018), ARC Future Fellowships, Sole CI.
12. Exploring new semiconductor materials for the next generation of infrared sensors (2013), UWA ECM small Research Development Grant, Lead CI.
13. Physical property study of novel HgCdSe infrared materials (2016), UWA RCA Project, Lead CI
14. Electrical characterization of novel “nBn” HgCdTe and HgCdSe infrared detectors, and HgTe/CdTe quantum well topological insulators for future electronic engineering applications (2015), UWA Gledden Visiting Fellowship, CI.
15. On-chip Mid-infrared chem/bio Sensors for analysing Hydrocarbons in Aqueous Environments (2014-2015), Universities Australia - DAAd German Research Cooperation Program, Lead CI.
16. UWA Start-up grant (2013-2018), UWA, Lead CI.
17. InAsSb quantum dots for mid-infrared lasers (2007-2010), ARC Discovery Project, Sole CI.                                                                                

• MBE growth and fabrication of HgCdTe infrared sensors;
• Novel HgCdSe infrared materials and sensor devices;
• Advanced infrared sensors with novel device architectures;
• Advanced curved infrared sensors ;
• On-chip integration of mid-infrared chemical sensors for environmental monitoring applications;
• Novel low-dimensional semiconductor optoelectronic materials and devices, including quantum dots, nanowires, and 2-Dimensional materials;
• Machine-learning assisted semiconductor material growth and device fabrication;
• Energy conversion and storage materials and devices, including solar cells and battery.                                                                                                   

• ELEC 3021 "Circuits and Electronics", Unit Coordinator and Lecturer (2024 ~ present)
• ENSC 3021 "Circuits and Electronics", Unit Coordinator and Lecturer (2019 ~ present)
• ENSC 2003 "Engineering Electrical Fundamentals", Unit Coordinator and Lecturer (2021 ~ 2022)
• ENSC 3017 "Circuits and Electronics", Unit Coordinator and Lecturer (2015~2019)
• ENSC 3014 "Electronic Materials and Devices", Unit Coordinator and Lecturer (2014)
• ELEC 4301 "Digital Communications and Networking", Lecturer (2013)
• ELEC 3306 "Signals and Systems 3", Lecturer (2012) 

Dr. Wen Lei delivered excellent teaching at UWA and received a number of teaching awards, including:

• UWA EECE Sustained High SURF Teaching Awards (2019)
• UWA EMS Faculty Teaching Awards (2018)