After graduating with excellent grades and plenty of job offers, she chose academia for the freedom to explore new ideas, apply her knowledge, and share it with others.
She joined DTU as a postdoc in 2000, initially working on a European project related to her PhD. Once it ended, she seized the opportunity to explore her own research interests.
Her curiosity led her to explore semiconductor materials including germanium nanocrystals, silicon carbide and gallium nitride – with silicon carbide eventually becoming a major focus of her career.
Today, she leads research into silicon carbide photonics at DTU Electro, spanning materials, devices, optical systems and applications.
And as she takes on her new role as full professor, she sees plenty of potential still to unlock.
“Silicon carbide could have the potential to be good for everything.”
Making an indirect semiconductor shine
One early milestone in Ou’s silicon carbide research was finding a way to make the material emit light. By doping it with specific impurities, she and her collaborators created strong yellow light emission from a material that does not naturally emit light efficiently.
“It was very exciting,” Ou recalls.
The work also put DTU on the international map. When Ou presented the results at an international silicon carbide conference, she noticed that Denmark was not even listed among the participating countries.
“No one from Denmark had participated in that conference before,” she says.
Since then, Ou’s group has built extensive expertise in processing silicon carbide in the cleanroom and developing it into tiny optical devices. Today, Ou says DTU is the only place in Europe capable of making silicon carbide nanodevices for optical applications – expertise that has led to major European collaborations and research projects.
The freedom to follow an idea
Building a new research field takes time. Ou credits both her curiosity and the Danish research environment for giving her the freedom to pursue ideas whose potential was not always obvious from the start.
A series of smaller national grants helped her build the expertise and infrastructure that later enabled larger international projects. One milestone was an award from the Danish Council for Strategic Research, followed by the European FET Open project SiComb project, which she secured on her first application – at a time when the success rate was just 2-4%.
Though the project was high-risk, the team delivered the results they had set out to achieve and helped pave the way for further European collaborations. Ou later secured the MSCA Doctoral Network SiCPIC on her first submission as well.
For Ou, these achievements show what can happen when researchers have the freedom to pursue unconventional ideas.
A field built from a chance encounter
Ironically, Ou’s work with silicon carbide began almost by chance. A colleague approached her about a collaboration involving silicon carbide and fluorescence. Since she was already working with LEDs and light-emitting materials, she thought: “Why not?”
The project introduced her to silicon carbide for lighting applications. She soon noticed its promising nonlinear optical properties and began exploring its potential for integrated and nonlinear optics – an area she had worked with before.
“Sometimes life is a circle. Each step you have worked through is not a waste.”
For Ou, the story also offers a lesson beyond research: opportunities can come from unexpected places.
“Always be nice to the people around you.”
From materials to applications
After years of developing the underlying technology, Ou is now looking towards what comes next. The field now spans everything from materials and nanofabrication to devices, modules, systems and applications. There is work to be done at every stage.
And that, she says, is what makes the field so exciting.
She hopes silicon carbide can become a major platform for integrated optics, especially for quantum technology, reducing the need to combine multiple materials in a single device. This could make optical technologies more compact and affordable while improving bandwidth, energy efficiency and thermal management.
“That is my dream,” she says.
For now, there is still work to do.
But the journey from a chance collaboration to a new research field has already shown Ou what can happen when curiosity is given room to lead the way.
