Professor Tu's fields of research include gas-source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) of III-V compound semiconductor heterostructures and nanostructures. He was the first to set up gas-source MBE systems in U.S. universities. With these systems, his group is able to advance the capability of MBE into arsenide / phosphide / nitride-based heterostructures and nanostructures to improve performance of electronic, opto-electronic, and photovoltaic devices.
He has authored or co-authored more than 390 refereed technical journal papers. Tu is a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, and the AVS Science and Technology Society. He was Engineering Educator of the Year in San Diego County in 2006, the recipient of Taiwan's Pan Wen-Yuan Foundation Outstanding Research Award in 2009, and the recipient of the North American MBE Innovator Award in 2011, an honorary doctorate from Linköping University in Sweden in 2013, and the IEEE Region 6 Outstanding Educator Award in 2014.