主要研究领域为极紫外超快光谱学和超快显微成像技术，包括：

I.  超快激光技术

发展新型的超快相干光源产生技术。包括周期量级中红外、可见光、紫外激光脉冲的产生和诊断；高亮度极紫外光源；软X射线相干光源；阿秒激光的产生与诊断；

II.  阿秒光谱学应用

发展超高时间分辨（阿秒）的非线性光谱技术（包括阿秒瞬态吸收谱技术和阿秒瞬态混频技术），将其应用于气相、固相材料中的光学改性（光电离、光激发、光诱导相变）的机理和过程研究，及光场时间结构的高速成像（全光学拍赫兹（10¹⁵Hz）示波器）。

III.  超快显微成像

研究宽带光源照明下的相位恢复算法解决光学全息及相干衍射成像中的复色问题，结合极紫外超快激光发展兼具高时间分辨、高空间分辨、成分可识别的成像技术。

Selected Publications

1. Wei Cao,Peixiang Lu,Pengfei Lan, Xinlin Wang, and Guang Yang, "Single-attosecond pulse generation with an intense multicycle driving pulse", Physical Review A, 74, 063821 (2006)

2. Wei Cao, Peixiang Lu, Pengfei Lan, Xinlin Wang, and Guang Yang. "Efficient isolated attosecond pulse generation from a multi-cycle two-color laser field." Optics Express 15, 530-535(2007)

3. Laurent, Guillaume, Wei Cao, H. Li, Zhenhua Wang, Itzik Ben-Itzhak, and Charles L. Cocke. "Attosecond control of orbital parity mix interferences and the relative phase of even and odd harmonics in an attosecond pulse train" Physical Review    Letters, 109, 083001(2012).

4. Wei Cao, Guillaume Laurent, Itzik Ben-Itzhak, and C. Lewis Cocke "Identification of a Previously Unobserved Dissociative Ionization Pathway in Time-Resolved Photospectroscopy of the Deuterium Molecule", Physical Review Letters,114,113001(2015)

5. Wei Cao, Erika R. Warrick, Ashley Fidler, Daniel M. Neumark, and Stephen R. Leone. "Noncollinear wave mixing of attosecond XUV and few-cycle optical laser pulses in gas-phase atoms: Toward multidimensional spectroscopy involving XUV excitations." Physical Review A 94, 053846(2016).

6. Wei Cao, Erika R. Warrick, Ashley Fidler, Stephen R. Leone, and Daniel M. Neumark. "Near-resonant four-wave mixing of attosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses with near-infrared pulses in neon: Detection of electronic coherences." Physical Review A 94, 021802(2016).

7. Wei Cao, Erika R. Warrick, Ashley Fidler, Stephen R. Leone, and Daniel M. Neumark. "Excited-state vibronic wave-packet dynamics in H2 probed by XUV transient four-wave mixing." Physical Review A 97, 023401(2018).

8. Mi, Kang, Wei Cao*, Huiyao Xu, Yunlong Mo, Zhen Yang, Pengfei Lan, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "Perturbed ac stark effect for attosecond optical-waveform sampling." Physical Review Applied 13, 014032(2020).

9. Chen, Xi, Wei Cao*, Zhiting Li, Zhen Yang, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "Probing laser-driven bound-state dynamics using attosecond streaking spectroscopy." Physical Review A 102,053119(2020).

10. Yang, Zhen, Wei Cao*, Xi Chen, Jie Zhang, Yunlong Mo, Huiyao Xu, Kang Mi, Qingbin Zhang, Pengfei Lan, and Peixiang Lu. "All-optical frequency-resolved optical gating for isolated attosecond pulse reconstruction." Optics Letters 45, 567-570(2020).

11. Mo, Yunlong, Wei Cao*, Huiyao Xu, Kang Mi, Xuechun Sun, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "Few-cycle optical pulse characterization under phase-mismatching." Optics Letters 46, 548-551(2021).

12. Yang, Zhen, Wei Cao*, Yunlong Mo, Huiyao Xu, Kang Mi, Pengfei Lan, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "All-optical attosecond time domain interferometry." National Science Review 8, nwaa211(2021).

13. Min Li, Ming Zhang, Oriol Vendrell, Zhenning Guo, Qianru Zhu, Xiang Gao, Lushuai Cao, Keyu Guo, Qin-Qin Su, Wei Cao*, Siqiang Luo, Jiaqing Yan, Yueming Zhou, Yunquan Liu, Zheng Li & Peixiang Lu. "Ultrafast imaging of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a photoionized molecular system." Nature Communications 12, 4233(2021).

14. Xu, Huiyao, Wei Cao*, Kang Mi, Yunlong Mo, Xi Chen, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "Direct in situ measurement of an ultrashort pulse using an optical hologram." Physical Review Applied 17, 014046(2022).

15. Chen, Xi, Wei Cao*, Kang Mi, Yu Zhang, Qingbin Zhang, and Peixiang Lu. "Decaying and revival dynamics of molecules revealed by attosecond wave-mixing spectroscopy." Optics Letters 47, 5646-5649(2022)

16. Liu, Ruifan, Wei Cao*, Qijun You, Yun Gao, Fucai Zhang, Qing Liao, and Peixiang Lu. "Broadband ptychographic imaging with an accurately sampled spectrum." Physical Review A 107, 033510(2023).

17. Liu, Yanhong, Wei Cao*, Ling-hui Yao, Liang-Wen Pi, Yueming Zhou, Peixiang Lu. "In-line attosecond photoelectron holography for single photon ionization"Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics  26, 17902(2024).

18. You, Qijun, Lingshuo Meng, Yun Gao, Qing Liao, Wei Cao*, Peixiang Lu. "Spectral multiplexing based on multi-distance lensless imaging." Optics Letters  49, 5535(2024).