Rho's research group is not only developing a new concept of novel optical nanomaterials having extraordinary and unprecedented eletromagnetic properties based on fundamental physics and experimental studies of deep sub-wavelength light-matter interaction, but also realizing engineering device applications including, but not limited to, super-resolution imaging, negative index materials, tunable high refractive index metasurface, highly efficient light trapping device, ultra-sensitive biomedical sensor, nanoscale laser, next generation scalable nanomanufacturing methods and deep-learning-based design methodologies.

Prof. Rho has authored and co-authored more than 180 high-impact journal papers including Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics and Nature Communications. He is also the recipients of several notable honors and awards such as MRS graduate student award (2011), SPIE scholarships in optics and photonics (2011,2012), OSA CLEO Incubic/Milton Chang Award (2013), Samsung Lee Kun-Hee fellowship (2008-2013), US Department of Energy Argonne Named fellowship (2014), Edmund Optics Award (2015), OSK Young Investigator Award (2016), SPIE Rising Researcher Award (2017), Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning Minister's Commendation (2017), Distinguished Teaching Award at POSTECH (2018), Proud POSTECHIAN Award (2018), Korean Ministry of Science and ICT Minister's Commendation (2019), OSA IMCO Young Scientist Award (2019), Korean Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2019), OSK Rising Stars 30 (2020), Springer-Nature MINE Young Scientist Award (2020), Elsevier MEE/MNE Young Investigator Award and Lectureship (2020), MDPI Micromachines Young Investigator Award (2020), Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST) Member (2020), Haerim (海林) Photonics Award (2021). He is also an editor of Light: Science and Applications (Springer-Nature), Nano Convergence (Springer), Micro and Nano Engineering (Elsevier), Photonix (Springer), Photonics Insights (Chinese Laser Press), Frontiers of Optoelectronics (Springer), Frontiers in Nanotechnology (Frontiers), Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing (ASME), Current Optics and Photonics (OSK), Nanophotonics (De Gruyter), Scientific Reports (Springer-Nature) and iScience (Cell Press).