Yuqiang Ding

Greetings! I'm a 4th year Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Shin-Tson Wu at CREOL, University of Central Florida.

My current research interests include novel liquid crystal optical elements and optical system design in AR/VR displays.

Education

Year	Title	Where
08/2021-Present	Ph. D. in Optics	CREOL, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA
09/2017-06/2021	B. S. in Optics	School of Information and Science Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong, China

Publications

1. (Co-first author) Y. Zhang, Y. Ding, Z. Luo, S. L. Lee, and S. T. Wu, “Optimizing the uniformity and efficiency of AR waveguide displays with an open-source beam tracing method,” Opt. Express 33(16), 34568-34585 (2025).
2. Y. Ding, Y. Zhang, Y. Huang, Y. Ma, Z. Luo, P.S. Chiu, and S. T. Wu, “Broadband and wide-view cholesteric liquid crystal polarization selective reflectors,” Opt. Express 33(15), 30967-30976 (2025).
3. K. Nilsen, Y. Ding, S. L. Lee, and S. T. Wu, “Comparisons of glass and plastic waveguides for augmented reality glasses,” Opt. Express 33(9), 20051-20062 (2025).
4. H. Tajvidi Safa, J. Semmen, Y. Ding, and S. T. Wu, “Colorless photoalignment material for fabricating liquid crystal holographic optical elements,” Opt. Express 33(9), 19490-19503 (2025).
5. Z. Luo, Y. Zhang, Y. Ding, and S. T. Wu, “Enhancing the virtual reality optical efficiency via emission cone optimization of the display panel,” Opt. Express 33(8), 17544-17550 (2025).
6. M. Selim, M. Ehrhardt, Y.Ding, H.M. Dinani, Q. Zhong, A. Perez-Leija, S.K. Ozdemir, M. Heinrich, A. Szameit, D. Christodoulides, and M. Khajavikhan, “Selective Filtering of Photonic Quantum Entanglement via Anti-Parity-Time Symmetry,” Science 387,1424-1428(2025).
7. Y. Ding, Y. Zhang, Y. Ma, Y. Huang, and S. T. Wu, “Polarization conversion effect in cholesteric liquid crystal-based polarization volume gratings,” Opt. Express 32(25), 44426-44436 (2024).
8. Y. Ding，X. Huang, Y. Ma, Y. Li, and S. T. Wu, “High-efficiency RGB Achromatic Liquid Crystal Diffractive Optical Elements,” Opto-Electron Adv. 8(3), 240181 (2025).
9. Y. Ding, Y. Gu, Q. Yang, Z. Yang, Y. Huang, Y. Weng, Y. Zhang, S.-T. Wu, “Breaking the in-coupling efficiency limit in waveguide-based AR displays with polarization volume gratings,” Light Sci. Appl. 13, 185 (2024).
10. Z. Luo, Y. Ding, F. Peng, Z. He, Y. Wang, and S.-T. Wu, “Compact and High-Efficiency Liquid-Crystal-on-Silicon for Augmented Reality Displays,” Photonics 11, 699 (2024).
11. Z. Yang, Z. Luo, Y. Ding, Y. Qian, S.-C. Chen, C.-L. Lin, and S. T. Wu, “Advances and challenges in microdisplays and imaging optics for virtual reality and mixed reality,” Device 2, 100398 (2024).
12. Z. Luo, Y. Ding，F. Peng, G. Wei, Y. Wang, and S. T. Wu, “Ultracompact and high-efficiency liquid- crystal-on-silicon light engines for augmented reality glasses,” Opto-Electron Adv. 7, 240039 (2024).
13. (Distinguished paper) Y. Ding, Z. Luo, G. Borjigin, and S. T. Wu, “High-efficiency and ultracompact pancake optics for virtual reality,” J. Soc. Inf. Display. 32, (2024). DOI: 10.1002/jsid.1298
14. (Distinguished paper) Q. Yang, Y. Ding and S. T. Wu, “Full-color, wide FoV single-layer waveguide for AR displays,” J. Soc. Inf. Display. 32, 1-8 (2024). DOI:10.1002/jsid.1288
15. Z. Luo, Y. Ding, Y. Qian, and S. T. Wu, “Ghost image analysis for pancake virtual reality systems,,” Opt. Express 32(10), 17211-17219 (2024).
16. G. Borjigin, Y. Ding, J. Semmen, H. Tajvidi Safa, H. Kakeya, and S. T. Wu, “Coarse Integral Volumetric Imaging Display with Time and Polarization Multiplexing,” Photonics 11, 7 (2024).
17. Y. Ding, Z. Luo, G. Borjigin, and S. T. Wu, “Breaking the optical efficiency limit of virtual reality with a nonreciprocal polarization rotator,” Opto-Electron Adv. 7(3), 230178 (2024).
18. Y. Ding, Q. Yang, Y. Li, Z. Yang, Z. Wang, H. Liang, and S. T. Wu, “Waveguide-based augmented reality displays: perspectives and challenges,” eLight 3, 24 (2023).
19. Z. Luo, Y. Ding, Y. Rao, and S. T. Wu, “High-efficiency folded optics for near-eye displays,” J. Soc. Inf. Disp. 31, xxx (Accepted, 2023). DOI: 10.1002/jsid.1207
20. (Distinguished paper)Y. Ding, Y. Li, Q. Yang, and S. T. Wu, “Design optimization of polarization volume gratings for full-color waveguide-based AR displays,” J. Soc. Inf. Disp. 31, xxx (Accepted, 2023). DOI: 10.1002/jsid.1206
21. Q. Yang, Y. Li, Y. Ding and S. T. Wu, “ Compact foveated AR displays with polarization selective planar lenses,” ACS Appl. Opt. Mater. (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaom.2c00203
22. Y. Ding, F. Ding, and X. Hu, "Exploring the gap between thermal operations and enhanced thermal operations.," Physical Review A 103.5 (2021): 052214. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.103.052214

Conference Proceedings

Honors & Awards

Year	Award
05/2025	SPIE Optics and Photonics Scholarship
04/2024	JSID Best Paper Award
04/2024	SID Distinguished Paper Award
01/2024	Third Place of SPIE Photonics West AR/VR/MR Optical Design Challenge
04/2023	SID Distinguished Paper Award
08/2021	ORC Doctoral Fellowship, University of Central Florida
10/2020	National Inspirational scholarship of China
10/2019	National scholarship of China

Leadership & Service

Year	Position
2023-2024	President of Society for Information Display (SID) UCF Student Branch
2022-2023	Treasurer of Society for Information Display (SID) UCF Student Branch