2026 Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize Winner
Get Involved
- Awards & Honors
- Community Engagement
- Early Career Professional...
- Education Outreach
- Public Affairs
- Local Section
- Students
-
Technical Groups
- Bio-Medical Optics
- Fabrication, Design and Instrumentation
- Image Acquisition, Processing. Display and Perception
- Optical Interaction Science
- Photonics and Opto-Electronics
- Quantum
- Sensing
- Technical Group Leadership Volunteers
- Technical Group Webinars
- Technical Group Search
- Technical Group Prizes
- Simulight Optics Challenge
- Volunteer
- Awards & Honors
- Community Engagement
- Early Career Professionals
- Education Outreach
- Public Affairs
- Local Section
- Students
-
Technical Groups
- Bio-Medical Optics
- Fabrication, Design and Instrumentation
- Image Acquisition, Processing. Display and Perception
- Optical Interaction Science
- Photonics and Opto-Electronics
- Quantum
- Sensing
- Technical Group Leadership Volunteers
- Technical Group Webinars
- Technical Group Search
- Technical Group Prizes
- Simulight Optics Challenge
- Volunteer
Optica Names Cheng-Wei Qiu the 2026 Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize Recipient
Optica is pleased to announce that Cheng-Wei Qiu, National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize. Qiu is honored for his pioneering works in interfacial optics of low-dimensional and van der Waals materials with photonic nanostructures, fusing multiscale symmetry, topology, and geometry from within natural crystals and meta-optics.
Qiu received his BE from the University of Science and Technology of China and his PhD from NUS. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the MIT Physics Department prior to joining NUS, where he is currently Provost’s Chair Professor. He is well known for his research in structured light, metasurface photonics, and hybrid interface optics with van der Waals crystals and symmetry-breaking low-dimensional materials.
He has served in Associate Editor roles for various journals such as JOSA B, PhotoniX, Photonics Research, and Editor-in-Chief for eLight. He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for Laser and Photonics Review, Advanced Optical Materials, and ACS Photonics. He has been a Highly Cited Researcher since 2019 as rated by Web of Science and as an overseas partner, he has been awarded China’s Top 10 Optical Breakthroughs six times.
Qiu is a Fellow of Optica, APS, SPIE, Academy of Engineering Singapore, ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, and the Electromagnetics Academy, and a Foreign Fellow of Chinese Optical Society. His additional awards include the Achievement in Asia Award (Robert T. Poe Prize), MIT TR35@Singapore Award, Young Scientist Award, and the President’s Science Award, the highest science distinction in Singapore.
First presented in 1982, the Fraunhofer Award recognizes significant research accomplishments in the field of optical engineering, and honors the contributions that Joseph Fraunhofer made to the field. The prize was added in 1992 in memory of Robert M. Burley, who exemplified many of the highest attributes of the optical engineer and was the first recipient of the award. The award and prize are endowed by the Baird Corporation, the Burley Family, and Prof. Shin-Tson Wu.
About Optica
Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students and others interested in the science of light. Optica's renowned publications, meetings, online resources and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate scientific, technical and educational achievement.
