Title: Synchrotron and neutron for materials science

Speaker: Prof. REN Yang

Date/Time: 2023.12.26 10:00-11:30

Location: Yiucheng Lecture Hall (500), Xu Zuyao Building

Inviter: Prof. DONG Anping

Biography

Yang REN (任洋) is Chair Professor and Head at Department of Physics, City University of Hong Kong (CityU), and Director of Hong Kong JC STEM Lab of “Energy and Materials Physics”. Prior to joining CityU in 2021, he was a Senior Physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, and a lead beamline scientist at Advanced Photon Source. He was awarded Hong Kong Global STEM Professorship (2021), and Argonne National Laboratory Board of Governors’ Distinguished Performance Award (2020 and Gopal K. Shenoy Excellence in Beamline Science Award, Advanced Photon Source (2020). He received his M.S. in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. His research interests focus on the structure-property studies of materials by utilizing synchrotron X-ray and neutron scattering and other techniques. His research activities include the investigation of phase transition, correlated electron systems, engineering materials, nanoparticles and nanocomposites, energy storage and conversion materials. He has published nearly 930 peer reviewed articles in Nature, Science, PRL and other prestigious journals. He has Google H-index of 112 with citations over 48,000. He is a Clarivate’s High Cited Researcher (2022, 2023).

Abstract

Neutron and synchrotron x-ray facilities are indispensable scientific resources and provide powerful instruments and experimental techniques for both fundamental and applied researches. Neutrons and X-rays interact with matter in different ways, thus are often used as complementary tools for studying materials at the electronic, atomic and molecular levels.

In this talk, we will discuss the difference and similarity of neutrons and synchrotron x-rays, and their complementary use in materials research. We will present their applications in materials research and development, covering fields of correlated electron systems, energy storage, nanoscience and advanced engineering materials etc. Finally, future perspectives and challenges of neutron and synchrotron techniques for materials science will be discussed.