physics

Hongkun Park

Hongkun Park is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hongkun Park rather than just read about it. In short: Hongkun Park (born 1967; Korean: 박홍근) is a South Korean-born American chemist and physicist. He was appointed Corporate President of Samsung Electronics in January 2026 and serves as Head of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT).

Key takeaways

Hongkun Park belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hongkun Park to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hongkun Park from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hongkun Park (born 1967; Korean: 박홍근) is a South Korean-born American chemist and physicist. He was appointed Corporate President of Samsung Electronics in January 2026 and serves as Head of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). He is also the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics at Harvard University (on leave). Park is renowned for his contributions to nanoscience, quantum information science, quantum materials, and bio–nano interfaces.

Early life and education Park received a B.S. in chemistry from Seoul National University in 1990, graduating summa cum laude and as valedictorian. After completing his mandatory military service in the South Korean Army, he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University in 1996 under Richard N. Zare, then conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with A. Paul Alivisatos and Paul L. McEuen.

Career Park joined the Harvard faculty in 1999 as an assistant professor. He became John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences in 2003 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2004. He holds joint appointments in Chemistry and Physics and is affiliated with the Harvard Quantum Science and Engineering Program, the Center for Brain Science, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Research Park’s early work pioneered single-molecule transistors and electron transport phenomena in nanoscale systems. In 2000, his team reported nanomechanical oscillations in a C60 single-molecule transistor, and in 2002, they observed a gate-tunable Kondo resonance in a single-molecule transistor. He has also contributed to quantum sensing and nanoscale NMR. A 2016 Science paper co-authored by Park demonstrated room-temperature nuclear magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of single proteins using a diamond-based quantum sensor. In two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructures, Park’s group has studied correlated electron phases, including the formation of bilayer Wigner crystals in transition-metal dichalcogenide heterostructures. Park has also developed novel nano–bio interfaces. His laboratory demonstrated vertical silicon nanoneedles capable of delivering biomolecules into living cells, and later developed CMOS nanoelectrode arrays that enable molecular delivery and intracellular recording of neurons and cardiomyocytes. He also contributed to the development of early pipelines for single-cell RNA sequencing.

Honors and awards Park’s recognitions include:

Ho-Am Prize in Science (2003). Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (2001). NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2008). Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (2016). Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011). Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2025).

Editorial and professional service Park has served as an associate editor of Nano Letters and on advisory boards for journals such as Chemical Society Reviews, Chemical Science, and Physical Review Applied. He has been a member of the jury for the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in Basic Sciences.

Entrepreneurship Park is a scientific co-founder of Quantum Diamond Technologies, Inc. (QDTI), which develops diamond-based quantum sensors, and of CytoTronics, a Harvard spin-out developing semiconductor platforms for cell-based assays. Since 2021, he has served as a senior advisor for Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.

Selected publications H. Park et al., "Nanomechanical oscillations in a single-C60 transistor," Nature **407** (2000): 57–60. W. Liang, M. P. Shores, M. Bockrath, J. R. Long, H. Park, "Kondo resonance in a single-molecule transistor," Nature **417** (2002): 725–729. I. Lovchinsky et al., "Nuclear magnetic resonance detection and spectroscopy of single proteins using quantum logic," Science **351** (2016): 836–841. Y. Zhou, J. Sung, E. Brutschea, I. Esterlis, Y. Wang, G. Scuri, R. J. Gelly, H. Heo, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, G. Zaránd, M. D. Lukin, P. Kim, E. Demler, H. Park, "Bilayer Wigner crystals in a transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructure," Nature **595** (2021): 48–52. A. K. Shalek, J. T. Robinson, E. S. Karp, J. S. Lee, D.-R. Ahn, M.-H. Yoon, A. Sutton, M. Jorgolli, R. S. Gertner, T. S. Gujral, G. MacBeath, E. G. Yang, H. Park, "Vertical silicon nanowires as a universal platform for delivering biomolecules into living cells," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA **107** (2010): 1870–1875. J. Abbott, T. Ye, L. Qin, M. Jorgolli, R. S. Gertner, D. Ham, H. Park, "CMOS nanoelectrode array for all-electrical intracellular electrophysiological imaging," Nature Nanotechnology **12** (2017): 460–466. A. K. Shalek, R. Satija, X. Adiconis, R. S. Gertner, J. T. Gaublomme, R. Raychowdhury, S. Schwartz, N. Yosef, C. Malboeuf, A. Gnirke, A. Goren, N. Hacohen, J. Z. Levin, H. Park, A. Regev, "Single-cell transcriptomics reveals bimodality in expression and splicing in immune cells," Nature **498** (2013): 236–240. For a full list of publications, see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=f8t5S4UAAAAJ&hl=en

References

External links Hongkun Park Lab homepage Google Scholar – Hongkun Park

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hongkun Park

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hongkun Park claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hongkun Park before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hongkun Park ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hongkun Park

In research: Hongkun Park appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hongkun Park in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hongkun Park is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1967 births, American chemists, American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hongkun Park outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hongkun Park in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hongkun Park means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hongkun Park out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hongkun Park in simple terms?

Why does Hongkun Park matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hongkun Park?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hongkun Park.