ICNST 2021 Keynote Speakers


Prof. Zikang TANG 汤子康教授
Director of Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering
应用物理和材料工程研究院院长
University of Macau (UM), China 澳门大学

Zikang Tang, currently is Chair Professor and Director of Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau. Before he joined to University of Macau in Jan 2016, he has been working for Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, as professor in the Department of Physics. Prof. Tang is a pioneer in research on wide bandgap semiconductor photo-electronic physics and devices. With outstanding achievements in the field of zinc oxide ultraviolet lasing materials and devices, he won a State Natural Science Award (2nd class) in 2003. In 2000, he developed a unique technique to produce the world’s smallest single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), with diameter of only 0.4 nm, which has been hailed as a revolutionary epoch-making material. Later, he observed novel one-dimensional superconductivity in these ultra-small SWNTs, causing a stir in the global scientific community. He was among the first group of professors recruited under China’s “Thousand Talent Scheme” and he is recipient of "China Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Award" (2020). He has published more than 300 papers in prestigious international journals, with citation frequency of over 12100 times. His pioneer research work on zinc oxide ultraviolet laser emission published on Applied Physics Letters is among the top 50 most cited papers in the past 50 years listed in the special 50th Anniversary edition of Applied Physics Letters. His research interest includes Nano structured electronic materials, Carbon nanotubes, graphene and 2D materials, ZnO crystal thin films, wide-gap semiconductors and their photo-electronic devices.


Prof. William C. Tang (FInstP, FAIMBE)
University of California, Irvine, USA

William C. Tang received his BS (1980), MS (1982), and PhD (1990) degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. His seminal thesis and invention of the electrostatic comb drive has been internationally recognized as one of the key building blocks of Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors and actuators, and is the most widely-cited work in the field for over two decades. Since his graduation, Dr. Tang contributed to the automotive industry at Ford Motor Company and space exploration at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Subsequently, he served as the DARPA Program Manager for various MEMS programs, the single largest federal funding source for MEMS at the time. In 2002, he was appointed a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Later, he was also jointly appointed with the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Departments. He was the first Associate Dean for Research in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering from 2008 to 2013. His research interests include micro- and nano-scale biomedical engineering, neural engineering, neuropathology and clinical applications. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow and Chartered Physicist with the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Speech Topic: Probing Neural Science at the Micro and Nano Scales
Abstract: According to the United Nations, there is one in every 6 persons in the world suffering from neurologic disorder. In the United States alone, there were 6.2 million patients living with Alzheimer’s disease in 2020; for example. This figure is projected to increase to 14 million in less than 30 years. Between 2000 and 2017, death from heart disease had gone down by 9%, while death from Alzheimer’s disease had gone up by 145%, killing more seniors than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. At the same time, various treatments for Alzheimer’s disease have not been effective without any known cure. Twenty years have passed between the previous FDA-approved drug for Alzheimer’s disease and the latest accelerated approval of aducanumab on June 7, 2021. One of the main bottlenecks in developing effective and long-lasting treatments in neurological disorders is our yet insufficient understanding of the nervous system and how various disorders impact its physiology. The advent of micro technology is offering tools to probe at the brain at a scale that has never been reached before and provide meaningful augmentation to our current knowledge on how the brain and the rest of the nervous system work. The uses of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) and nanotechnology both in vivo and in vitro have elucidated the intricate and complex network of neuronal tissues and subregions of different parts of the brain. One example of such advances is the reconstruction of hippocampal subregions in a microfluidic device to study the electrophysiology of neural communications. The hippocampus has been known as the center for memory formation, consolidation, and retrieval. The rich axonal spike dynamics between subregions of the hippocampus reveal both constraints and broad emergent dynamics of hippocampal architecture. In particular, certain aspects of how memories are received, sorted, stored, and retrieved can be probed at with analyzing spikes and spike dynamics from subregions of the hippocampus. Further studies could shed light on how the brain learns and unlearns. Similar studies on the other parts of the brain are vital to understanding how disease states impact the brain and how potential therapeutic strategies can be developed meaningfully.

ICNST 2021 Invited Speakers

 


Dr. Wenan Zhong 钟文安博士
Chief Engineer, Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China 西昌卫星发射中心总工程师

Dr. Wenan Zhong is the current chief engineer of Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC). He graduated from the National University of Defense Technology in 1991. He is a panelist of Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), Chang'e Project and other major special projects. Dr. Zhong is the deputy designer-in-chief of launch sites for China’s Lunar Exploration Program, Mars Exploration Program, and Manned Space Engineering Program. He was honored with one first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, one first prize of the Ministry of Education Science and Technology Progress Award, two second prizes and three third prizes for Army Science and Technology Progress Award.
钟文安，西昌卫星发射中心总工程师，1991年毕业于国防科技大学。北斗卫星工程，嫦娥探月工程等重大专项工程专家组成员，探月工程、火星探测、载人空间工程等发射场副总设计师。获得国家科技进步一等奖一次，教育部科技进步一等奖一次，军队科技进步二等奖2项，三等奖3项。
Speech Topic: Analysis of engineering application requirements of nano coating materials in typical atmospheric environment of South China Sea
Abstract: Coatings are the primary means to control the corrosion of marine engineering structures. It is the frontier and hot spot of nano coating materials research to use nano materials to modify anti-corrosion coatings, realize the complementary advantages between different materials, and prepare high-performance, environmental protection, energy saving and functional anti-corrosion coatings. However, with the application of nano coating materials in the atmospheric environment of the South China Sea, there are many problems of poor weatherability. Based on the environmental corrosion characteristics of the South China Sea coastal zone, this paper evaluates the environmental adaptability of several nano coating materials in the coastal atmospheric environment, analyzes the engineering application requirements of nano coating materials, and puts forward the measures and suggestions for the development of nano coating materials in marine engineering in view of the main problems existing in the engineering application of nano coating materials in China.


Prof. Junsong Chen 陈俊松教授
 University of Electronic Science and Technology of China 电子科技大学

Professor Jun Song CHEN received his Ph.D. at Nanyang Technological University in 2012. After that, he worked at the Max Plank Institute of Colloids and Interfaces as an Alexander von Humboldt researcher from 2013 to 2014. He is now a Professor at the School of Materials and Energy, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He was one of the “Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers” and “Elsevier Chinese Highly Cited Researchers”. His research interests include the design of nanostructured materials for energy-related applications, such as supercapacitors, lithium batteries, and water splitting.
Speech Topic: Interface Engineering in Heterostructured Metal Selenides for Enhanced Sodium Storage Properties
Abstract: As a promising alternative to the lithium-ion batteries especially in the large-scale applications, sodium-ion batteries possess the distinct advantages including the high reserves of sodium resources. However, the large atomic size of sodium ions causes the sluggish kinetic process as well as severe structural variation during charge/discharge process. To address these problems, we developed effective approaches to construct metal selenides with unique heterostructures, giving rise to interfaces with greatly enhanced electronic and ionic conduction. This led to selenide nanocomposites with significantly improved cycling stability and high-rate performance for sodium-ion batteries.


Prof. Dewei Zhao 赵德威教授
 Sichuan University, China 四川大学

Dewei Zhao received his Ph.D. degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From 2012–2018, he worked as a Postdoc Associate at University of Michigan and University of Florida and a Research Assistant Professor at The University of Toledo. Currently, he has been a professor in Institute of Solar Energy Materials and Devices, College of Materials Science and Engineering at Sichuan University, China. He has been awarded “Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Finance Students Abroad” (2011, China), and “Green Talents Competition 2010” (BMBF, Germany). He has contributed over 100 publications in journals of Nat. Energy (2), Science (3), Adv. Mater. (2), Adv. Energy Mater. (3), etc. He has also been serving as referee in journals of Nat. Energy, Energy & Environ. Sci., Adv. Mater., J. Am. Chem. Soc., etc. His recent research interest focuses on organic/inorganic hybrid optoelectronic devices and characterizations, such as thin-film solar cells, light-emitting diodes, and photodetectors.
Speech Topic: Efficient Sn-based Perovskite Solar Cells
Abstract: Tandem solar cells using all metal-halide perovskite thin films show great promise for next-generation solar cells in terms of reduced cost, flexibility, and high efficiency, an effective way to break the Shockley-Queisser limit of single-junction cells. Low-bandgap mixed tin (Sn)-lead (Pb) perovskite solar cells, as a key to make highly efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells, have been gaining extensive interest due to their appropriate bandgaps and promising application to build efficient all-perovskite tandem cells. Tin fluoride (SnF2) as a basis along with various strategies has been widely used. However, fully understanding the roles of SnF2 in both films and devices is still lacking. Here, we will present the progress and strategies on low-bandgap Sn-Pb cells devoted by our group in the past years. More importantly, we systematically investigate the effect of single SnF2 additive on both optoelectronic properties of low-bandgap mixed Sn-Pb perovskite films and solar cells performance. We find that a decent amount of SnF2 not only suppresses the oxidation of Sn2+ and reduces the hole concentration related to Sn vacancies, but also promotes the perovskite growth, which reduces the disorder of crystal arrangement and improves the crystallinity. We also probe and evidence the location of excessive the F- ions. Our work suggests that such a fundamental understanding of SnF2 additives would definitely help unveil the in-depth mechanisms of additional additives and approaches proposed in efficient low-Eg mixed Sn-Pb perovskite solar cells towards making highly efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells.

 


Assoc. Prof. Jianwen Jiang (FRSC)
 National University of Singapore, Singapore

Jianwen Jiang is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), also in NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering, and a fellow in Membrane Science and Technology Consortium, Singapore. His research expertise is computational materials modeling, currently focused on metal-organic frameworks and polymer membranes for energy, environmental and pharmaceutical applications such as carbon capture, water desalination and drug delivery. The modeling research is in the multidisciplinary field of materials, chemistry, engineering and physics, in close collaboration with experimental groups. He has published over 250 technical manuscripts, as well as over 10 invited reviews and book chapters. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).
Speech Topic: Metal-Organic Frameworks for Chemical Separations and Reactions: A Computational Perspective
Abstract: Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a unique class of nanoporous materials and received tremendous interest over the last two decades. The variation of metal oxides and the judicious choice of controllable organic linkers allow the pore size, volume and functionality of MOFs to be readily tailored in a rational manner. Consequently, MOFs provide a wealth of opportunities for engineering of nanoporous materials and have been considered as versatile candidates for many important potential applications. Nevertheless, the number of MOFs synthesized to date is extremely large, thus experimental testing alone is economically expensive and practically infeasible. With rapidly growing computational resources, computational methods have become indispensable to characterize, screen, and design MOFs. In this presentation, I will give an overview of our recent computational studies on MOFs for chemical separations and reactions, such as carbon capture and utilization, biofuel purification, water desalination, chiral synthesis, etc. It will be demonstrated that computations at an atomic/molecular level can secure the quantitative interpretation of experimental observations, provide microscopic insight from bottom-up, and facilitate the development of new MOFs.