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Shengbai Zhang
Kodosky Constellation Professor; Professor of Physics
Education:
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, 1989 (Physics).
M.S., University of California at Berkeley, 1985 (Physics).
B.S., Jilin University, Changchun, China, 1982 (Electronic Science and Engineering).
Career Highlights:
1989-91: Post Doctoral Research Fellow, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto.
1991-94: Research Associate, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
1994-97: Staff Scientist, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
1997-00: Senior Scientist I, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
2000-07: Senior Scientist II, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
2006- : Adjunct Professor, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
Research Interests:
My research goal is to help solving urgent national needs in sustainable energy, environment, technology, and security by remarkable quantum-mechanical computational discoveries. Researches cover first-principles structural and electronic properties of a broad range of solid-state materials from crystalline and amorphous semiconductors, metals, nanostructures to carbon nanotubes. In particular, we study 1) nanophysics and chemistry such as magic cluster arrays and quantum films on semiconductor surfaces and icosahedral semiconductor quantum dots, promoting the importance of so-far largely overlooked symmetry effects in the quantum regime. 2) Defect and doping physics. Not only we laid the ground for modern defect calculations, but also we have been leading the theoretical efforts of doping widegap semiconductors such as zinc oxide. 3) Hydrogen economy. A bottleneck in realizing the hydrogen economy is the onboard storage of H2 that can be readily available for use. We have been leading the theory efforts of predicting new solid-state storage materials to meet the US DOE targets. 4) Surface science. In some sense, surface in vacuum is a science of yesterday, while surface in solution is still that of tomorrow. In addition, a lot of surface issues are those of realistic systems nowhere near the ideal conditions. We are bridging the gap by studying colloidal surface reconstruction and dislocations in lattice mismatched interfaces for solar cell applications. 5) New methodology and fundamental discoveries. As quantum physicists and chemists, nothing is more exciting than discoveries that can transform our own field to the next level of excellence. We are currently developing stochastically accelerated molecular dynamics and efficient and accurate van der Waals energy method. We also envision cyber-space discoveries of new physics and chemistry by utilizing the mega computation facilities at RPI CCNI and through marriage between physical sciences and computational and informational sciences.
Selected Publications:
Ma X.; Jiang P.; Qi Y.; Jia J.; Yang Y.; Duan W.; Li W.-X.; Bao X.; Zhang S. B.; Xue Q.-K. “Experimental observation of quantum oscillation of surface chemical reactivities”, PNAS 104, 9204-9208 (2007).
Allenic A.; Guo W.; Chen Y. B.; Katz M. B.; Zhao G. Y.; Che Y.; Hu Z. D.; Liu B.; Zhang S. B.; Pan X. Q. “Amphoteric phosphorus doping for stable p-type ZnO”, Advanced Materials 19, 3333 (2007).
Sun, Y. Y.; Kim, Y.-H.; Zhang, S. B. “Effect of Spin State on the Dihydrogen Binding Strength to Transition Metal Centers in Metal-Organic Frameworks”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. (Communication) 2007; 129: 12606.
McDonald, T. J.; Svedruzic, D.; Kim, Y.-H.; Blackburn, J. L.; Zhang, S. B.; King, P. W.; Heben, M. J. “Wiring-Up Hydrogenase with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes”, Nano Lett. 2007; 7; 3528.
Du M.-H.: Branz H. M.; Crandall R. S.; Zhang S. B. “Bistability-mediated carrier recombination at light-induced boron-oxygen complexes in silicon”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 066102 (2007).
Contact:
(518) 276-6127
zhangs9@rpi.edu
Home Page: http://www.rpi.edu/~zhangs9/
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