Women in Photonics Excellence Award

For contributions to the development of hetero-epitaxy by metal organic chemical vapor deposition for photonics devices and monolithic micro-LED micro-displays.

Kei May Lau is a Research Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST).  She received her degrees from the University of Minnesota and Rice University and served as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst before joining HKUST in 2000. Lau is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of IEEE, Optica (formerly OSA), and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences. She was also a recipient of the IPRM award, IET J J Thomson medal for Electronics, Optica Nick Holonyak Jr. Award, IEEE Photonics Society Aron Kressel Award, US National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Awards for Women (FAW) Scientists and Engineers, and Hong Kong Croucher Senior Research Fellowship. She was an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices and Electron Device Letters, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Crystal Growth and Applied Physics Letters.

Lau’s research focuses on the development of monolithic integration of semiconductor devices and systems on industry-standard silicon substrates by MOCVD. Lau invented LED-on-Silicon (LEDoS) – an array of LEDs addressable with a silicon active matrix, enabling high-resolution micro-displays visible under bright daylight. Her patented LEDoS monolithic micro-LED arrays driven and controlled by CMOS-ICs are mainly for AR/VR applications. This technology is being commercialized by her former students who founded companies based on their thesis work on micro-LED micro-displays.