Dr. Xining Zang

Postdoc Associate

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Xining Zang is a postdoc researcher in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Zang got her Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley in 2017 August. During PhD, she worked on 2D materials synthesis and assembly to nanostructured device, which spans from wafer scale manufacturing and integration of 2D materials including transition metal chalcogenide and transition metal carbides for electronics and energy-related applications (catalyst, battery, and supercapacitors). Currently, she is working on laser ablating and doping natural carbonaceous materials (coal, tar, and etc) for electronics devices. Her future research scope lands in laser based new materials design and manufacturing of function-structure integrated materials.

Laser Based New Materials Design and Manufacturing: Integration of Nano/Micro Functional Structures

Laser annealing and laser ablation method show a great advantage in synthesis and construction of low dimension materials, such graphene sponge, metal nanoparticles, nanoflakes of metal oxide and etc. Besides controlling the rapid thermal uptake in the laser process, the bottom-up precursor design also plays a key role in designing product phase and mesoscale structure. In this talk, a few examples will be discussed, including laser induced graphene-carbide composite starting from metallo-hydrogel, carbon network from natural carbonaceous materials and hierarchical porous two-dimensional transition metal carbide with applications in flexible electronics and clean energy. Devices made from chemically synthesized nanomaterials require further lithography steps; instead, the direct patterning method would enable roll-to-roll manufacturing of host of potential applications sensing, electrocatalysis, energy storage and etc.