Pengke Li, Ph.D.

Pengke Li, Ph.D. is a patent agent in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice Group, where he assists in patent preparation and prosecution. His technical areas of expertise include semiconductor device physics, optoelectronics, microelectronic fabrications, and nanotechnology. He is also experienced in topics in artificial intelligence, including the physical informed deep learning and the transformer model in natural language processing.

Pengke received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in electrical engineering. His doctoral research focused on spintronics in group VI semiconductors. By investigating the symmetry of the spin degree of freedom for electrons in silicon and germanium, he developed theories explaining the spin-dependent properties of these materials, especially the transport and optical behaviors. Pengke earned his B.S. in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. During his senior year, he conducted an experiment characterizing superconducting tunneling devices for building quantum bits.

Prior joining Sterne Kessler, Pengke was a research scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, where his studies covered various theoretical and experimental topics about novel electronic properties of quantum materials and devices, such as spintronics, 2D van der Waals materials, topological materials, nano-science, etc. His research activities involved theoretical formulation, numerical calculation, electrical and optical measurements, cleanroom microelectronic fabrication, and nano-material characterization.