About me

My name is Razan Omar Nughays, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), working with Prof. William A. Tisdale. My research focuses on developing and applying ultrafast experimental techniques to understand energy transport and charge-carrier dynamics in complex materials.

I earned my Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia under the supervision of Prof. Omar F. Mohammed. My work is shaped by the legacy of Ahmed Zewail through my advisor, and is grounded in developing and using ultrafast scanning electron microscopy (4D-USEM) to probe charge-carrier dynamics with high spatiotemporal resolution.

4D-USEM setup for imaging carrier dynamics in real space and real time. A femtosecond laser is integrated into the SEM, enabling simultaneous high spatial resolution and ultrafast temporal resolution (~10^-15 s).

I had the privilege of collaborating with experts across different areas of the field, including Prof. Osman Bakr’s group, a leading group in single-crystal perovskite research; Jianfeng Zhao, who was a postdoctoral researcher at the time and introduced me to 4D-USEM; Jun Yin, whose work focuses on first-principles (DFT) modeling of carrier dynamics; and Prof. Shadi Fatayer whose research focuses on surface science at the atomic scale. I also collaborated with Prof. Bolin Liao during my internship at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), whose research centers on nanoscale heat and energy transport, resulting in a publication by the end of the visit.