Yera Ussembayev is an FWO-funded postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University and the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the following areas:
- Optical trapping and electrophoresis of nanoparticles and biomolecules;
- Chiral liquid crystalline structures, including micro- and nanoparticles;
- Light absorption and emission by quantum dots and nanocrystals;
- Laser-guided drug delivery in cell transfection and ophthalmology.
Yera obtained his PhD degree in Applied Physics from Ghent University, Belgium, and MSc degree in Nanobiophotonics from Friedrich-Schiller-University, Germany. Prior to his doctoral studies, Yera researched molecular nanomotors involved in cell motility and genome processing at Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands. Afterwards Yera was invited in LCP research group to study light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. Currently, he is a postdoc at the University of Oxford, UK, where he studies electrostatic interactions in biomolecular and colloidal nanosystems.
More info can be found at Google Scholar, Research Gate, and LinkedIn.
Highlighted publications
- Léa Guerassimoff*, Yera Ussembayev*, Louise De Clerck, Deep Punj, Martijn van den Broek, Filip Beunis, Katrien Remaut, Kevin Braeckmans, Stefaan De Smedt, Félix Sauvage, "Photothermal transport for guiding nanoparticles through the vitreous humor", Advanced Science, 2026 (*equally contributing authors)
- Yera Ussembayev, Yuki Arakawa, Filip Beunis, Anne Spoelstra, Tom Bus, Albert Schenning, Kristiaan Neyts, "Optical blaster: launching nanostructured microrockets out of an optical trap by a single laser beam", ACS Nano, 2025 (featured on the journal cover)
- Yera Ussembayev, Farshad Rezakhanloo, Kristiaan Neyts, Filip Strubbe, "Axial electrokinetic trapping of label-free nanoparticles using evanescent field scattering", Nanoscale, 2025 (featured on the journal cover)
- Yera Ussembayev, Noah De Witte, Xiaohong Liu, Alberto Belmonte, Tom Bus, Sjoukje Lubach, Filip Beunis, Filip Strubbe, Albert Schenning, Kristiaan Neyts, “Uni- and bidirectional rotation and speed control in chiral photonic micromotors powered by light", Small, 2023 (featured on the journal frontispiece)
- Yera Ussembayev, Filip Beunis, Lucas Oorlynck, Mohammadreza Bahrami, Filip Strubbe, Kristiaan Neyts, "Single elementary charge fluctuations on nanoparticles in aqueous solution", ACS Nano, 2023 (featured on the journal cover)
- Yera Ussembayev, Natalia Zawacka, Filip Strubbe, Zeger Hens, Kristiaan Neyts, "Waveguiding of photoluminescence in a layer of semiconductor nanoparticles", Nanomaterials, 2021 (featured on the journal cover)
- Alberto Belmonte, Yera Ussembayev, Tom Bus, Inge Nys, Kristiaan Neyts, Albert Schenning, "Dual light temperature responsive micrometer-sized structural color actuators", Small, 2020 (featured on the journal cover)
- Yera Ussembayev, Zeger Hens, Kristiaan Neyts, "Contrasting anisotropy of light absorption and emission by semiconductor nanoparticles", ACS Photonics, 2019 (featured on the journal cover)