Dr. Zhong Lin 'ZL' Wang Regents’ Professor and COE Distinguished Professor Director, Center for Nanostructure Characterization & Fabrication (CNCF) ANNOUNCING ICON 2009 3rd International Conference on One-dimensional Nanomaterials December 7-9,2009  CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS Georgia Institute of Technology Materials Science and Engineering 771 Ferst Drive, N.W. Atlanta, GA 30332-0245 Office:  IPST 273A Phone: 404.894.8008  |   Fax: 404.894.9140 zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu Website: www.nanoscience.gatech.edu/zlwang B.S. Northwest Telecommunication Engineering Institute        (currently Xidian University), China, 1982 Ph.D. Arizona State University, 1987 Dr. Z. L. Wang is a Regents’ Professor and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor. He is also the Director for the Center for Nanostructure Characterization and Fabrication (CNCF) at Georgia Tech. Research Interests Science and applications of nanoparticles, nanowires and nanobelts Functional oxide and smart materials for sensing and actuating Nanomaterials for biomedical applications and nanodevices Recent Research Highlights The July/August issue of the Science Watch published by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) lists the world's top 25 researchers and institutions in nanotechnology from 1992-2002. Z.L. Wang ranks number 5 internationally with 121 papers on the subject!  His papers have been cited 2348 times placing him on the list of the top 25 most cited authors in the world.  He has published 38% of the 6150 citations to Georgia Tech papers which places Tech number 12 worldwide. The report has also highlighted Wang's research on nanobelt. Discovered the world’s first piezoelectric nanospring, which has been reported by Business Week and e-Time. Discovered the nanobelt in 2001, which was considered to be a ground breaking work and was reported by over 20 media including USA Today, Science News, BBC News, and Frankfutter Allgemeine Zeitung. The discoverery of the nanobelt is being considered in the same category as the discovery of nanotubes. The paper on nanobelt was the most cited paper in chemistry in 2001-2003 (ISI, Science Watch). Discovered the perfect seamless nanoring of semiconducting and piezoelectric ZnO. Discovered the world’s smallest balance, nanobalance, in 1999, which was selected as the breakthrough in nanotechnology by the America Physical Society in 2000. This discovery was covered by over 10 different media including Physics Today and People’s Daily. Discovered a novel technique for producing hydrogen from methane and water with the potential of using solar energy, which was covered by Business Week. Discovered the world first nanogenerator that converts mechanical energy into electricity for powerinig nanodevices and nanosensors. The first time synthesis of single-crystal ceramic nanoparticles for nanoelectronics applications. Discovered a generic approach for synthesis one-dimensional and zero-dimensional nanomaterials of complex function oxides for applications in ferromagnetism, colossal magnetoresistance, piezoelectricity, ferroelectricity and more. Leadership Under Dr. Wang's leadership and extremely hard work, the Georgia Tech Electron Microscopy Center was established in 1999. This Center not only links numerous research programs and groups on campus, but also is becoming a center for education and collaboration. This Center has been extensively developed and expanded to include 15 major research equipment, and it is now becomes a Center for Nanostructure Characterization and Fabrication (CNCF). Dr. Wang is the founding Director for the Center on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Georgia Tech, which is playing the most crucial role in organizing GT and other universities for national competition on nanotechnology initiatives launched by federal government. Dr. Wang is also very active in initiating and driving the join research, education and degree programs between Georgia Tech and Peking University (China). Honors and Awards Dr. Wang has received the 1999 Burton Medal from Microscopy Society of America, 1998 NSF CAREER award, 1998 China-NSF Oversea Outstanding Young Scientists Award, 2000 and 2005 Georgia Tech outstanding research award, 2005 Sigma Xi Sustained Research Award, 2001 S.T. Li prize for outstanding contribution in nanotechnology, and has also received three best paper awards. His research papers have been cited for over 12,000 times. The h-index of his publications is 51. He is the world’s top 25 most cited authors in nanotechnology for the last decade (ISI). He has also received research fellowships from Univ. Cambridge, US Department of Energy and ORISE. He is a member of the editorial boards of over 10 major journals. He is an honorable and guest professor of over 10 universities. Two symposiums (May 7, 2003; Oct. 12, 2005) organized by the University of Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris) and sponsored by the L'Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) in the honor of Prof. Wang for his outstanding contribution in nanotechnology. Dr. Wang is a member for the European Academy of Sciences (www.eurasc.org; www.euacademy.org), fellow of APS, and a fellow of the World Innovation Foundation (www.thewif.org.uk). Community Service Dr. Wang is actively participating the activities and services in scientific professional societies. He has served as chair and co-chair for 14 local, national and international conferences organized 10 symposia and chaired over 15 sessions in national and international conferences. He has served as a member for the review panel for NSF, NASA and DOE and advisory board for numerous centers on nanotechnology. He is a referee for numerous prestigious journals, such as Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters, Nature Materials and J. American Chemical Soc. Research Dr. Wang has filed 15 patents, has authored and co-authored 4 textbooks, edited 14 books, authored 55 review articles and book chapters, over 440 peer reviewed publications and 120 other conference proceeding publications, and has given over 380 invited presentations, keynote speaks, distinguished lectures and seminars, and 150 contributed presentations at national and international conferences. Dr. Wang's research covers a wide range of technical interests in materials science ranging from theoretical to experimental research on fundamental as well as applied problems. He has been invited to give a series of lectures in China, France, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, Japan and US. His recent research focuses on nanomaterials for biomedical applications, nanomaterials for MEMS and NEMS technology and integration of nanotechnology with biotechnology.His primary research accomplishments are in the following fields. 1. Invented nanowire piezo-electric generators for self-powered nanodevices (Science, 312, (2006) 242) Developing novel technologies for wireless nanodevices and nanosystems are of critical importance for in-situ, real-time and implantable biosensing, biomedical monitoring and biodetection. An implanted wireless biosensor requires a power source, which may be provided directly or indirectly by charging of a battery. It is highly desired for wireless devices and even required for implanted biomedical devices to be self-powered without using battery. Therefore, it is essential to explore innovative nanotechnologies for converting mechanical energy, vibration energy, and hydraulic energy into electric energy that will be used to power nanodevices without using battery. A groundbreaking research by Dr. Wang in 2006 is the invention of the Piezo-Electric Generators for Self-Powered Nanodevices. He demonstrated an innovative approach for converting nano-scale mechanical energy into electric energy by piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays. By deflecting the aligned NWs using a conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip in contact mode, the energy that was first created by the deflection force and later converted into electricity by piezoelectric effect has been measured for demonstrating nano-scale power generator. The operation mechanism of the electric generator relies on the unique coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO as well as the elegant rectifying function of the Schottky barrier formed between the metal tip and the NW. The efficiency of the NW based piezo-electric power generator is ~ 17-30%. This is an approach in compliments with ATP based bio-motors that convert chemical energy into mechanical energy. The principle and technology demonstrated here have the potential of converting mechanical movement energy (such as body movement, muscle stretching, blood pressure), vibration energy (such as acoustic/ultrasonic wave), and hydraulic energy (such as flow of body fluid, blood flow, contraction of blood vessel) into electric energy that may be sufficient for self-powering nanodevices and nanosystems. The nano-generator could be the foundation for exploring new self-powering technology for in-situ, real-time and implantable biosensing, biomedical monitoring and biodetection. 2. Polar surface induced novel growth processes and mechanism of oxide nanostructures and electromechanical coupled devices (Science 303 (2004) 1348; Science, 309 (2005) 170) The wurtzite structure family has a few important members, such as ZnO, GaN, AlN, ZnS and CdSe, which are important materials for applications in optoelectronics, lasing and piezoelectricity. The two important characteristics of the wurtzite structure are the non-central symmetry and the polar surfaces. The structure of ZnO, for example, can be described as a number of alternating planes composed of tetrahedrally coordinated O2- and Zn2+ ions, stacked alternatively along the c-axis. The oppositely charged ions produce positively charged (0001)-Zn and negatively charged (000-1)-O polar surfaces, resulting in a normal dipole moment and spontaneous polarization along the c-axis. This polar surface gives rise a few interesting growth features. The breakthroughs by Wang’s group in 2004 is the success of first piezoelectric nanobelts and nanorings (Science 303 (2004) 1348) for applications as sensors, transducers and actuators in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems. Owing to the positive and negative ionic charges on the zinc- and oxygen-terminated ZnO basal planes, respectively, a spontaneous polarization normal to the nanobelt surface is induced. As a result, helical nanosprings/nanocoils are formed by rolling up single crystalline nanobelts. The mechanism for the helical growth is suggested for the first time to be a consequence of minimizing the total energy contributed by spontaneous polarization and elasticity. The nanobelts have widths of 10-60 nanometers and thickness of 5-20 nanometers, and they are free of dislocations. The polar surface dominated ZnO nanobelts and helical nanosprings are likely to be an ideal system for understanding piezoelectricity and polarization induced ferroelectricity at nano-scale.   The major discovery made by Wang’s group in 2005was the discovery of a new rigid helical structure of zinc oxide consisting of a superlattice-structured nanobelt (Science, 309 (2005) 170), which was formed spontaneously in a vapor-solid growth process. Starting from a single-crystal stiff-nanoribbon dominated by the c-plane polar-surfaces, an abrupt structural transformation into the superlattice-structured nanobelt led to the formation of a uniform nanohelix due to a rigid lattice rotation or twisting. The nanohelix was made of two types of alternating and periodically distributed long crystal stripes, which were oriented with their c-axes perpendicular to each other. The nanohelix terminated by transforming into a single -crystal nanobelt dominated by nonpolar surfaces. The nanohelix could be manipulated, and its elastic properties were measured, which suggests possible uses in electromechanically -coupled sensors, transducers and resonators. Return to top