Zhong Lin Wang
Zhong Lin Wang | |
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王中林 | |
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| Nationality | United States |
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| Website | www |
Zhong Lin (ZL) Wang (Chinese: 王中林; pinyin: Wáng Zhōnglín; born 1961 in Shaanxi, China) is a Chinese-born American physicist, materials scientist and engineer specialized in nanotechnology and energy science. He received his PhD from Arizona State University in 1987. He is the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering and Regents' Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.[1]
Education[]
- B.S. in Applied Physics, Xidian University, Xi'an, China, 1982.
- Ph.D. in Physics, Arizona State University, 1987.
He came to the US for graduate school through CUSPEA program organized by Tsung-Dao Lee.
Career[]
Wang was employed a visiting Lecturer at Stony Brook University from 1987 to 1988. After working as a research fellow in the following year at Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge, Wang joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a research scientist from 1990–1994. He was hired by Georgia Institute of Technology as an associate professor in 1995; he was promoted to full Professor in 1999, Regents' professor in 2004, and the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering in 2010. Wang was the Director of the Georgia Tech’s Center for Nanostructure Characterization from 2000–2015. He is the Founding Director, Director, and Chief Scientist at Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2012.[2]
Research accomplishments[]
 | This article reads like a press release or a news article and is largely based on routine coverage or sensationalism. (January 2019) |
Summary of Wang's accomplishments[]
Wang has made original and seminal contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization, and fundamental understanding of the physical properties of zinc oxide nanobelts and nanowires.[3] He was the first to recognize and exploit the potential of ZnO nanostructures for innovative applications in energy, sensors, electronics, and optoelectronic devices. His discoveries and breakthrough works in developing nanogenerators have established the principle and technological road map for harvesting mechanical energy from the environment and biological systems for powering mobile sensors.[4] Such power and sensor technology can find applications in internet of things, human-machine interfaces, robotics, artificial intelligence, and blue energy.[5] He found that the theoretical origin of nanogenerators is the Maxwell's displacement current.[6] His research on triboelectric nanogenerators[7] and self-powered nanosystems[8] has inspired worldwide efforts in academia and industry for harvesting ambient energy for micro-nano-systems, which is now a distinct discipline in energy science for future sensor networks and internet of things.
Wang coined and pioneered the fields of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics by introducing piezoelectric potential gated charge transport process in fabricating strain-gated transistors for new electronics, optoelectronics, sensors, and energy sciences.[9] The piezotronic effect and piezo-phototronic effect first discovered by Wang have important impact to electronics and photonics of the third generation semiconductors.[10][11] The piezotronic transistors have applications in smart MEMS/NEMS, nanorobotics, human-electronics interface and sensors.
Wang's pioneer work on in-situ measurements of mechanical and electrical properties of a single nanotube/nanowire inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM) opens a new field of nanomechanics for TEM, which was what led to his seminal work on oxide nanostructures[12] and the inventions of various “nanogenerator” devices. His early work on inelastic scattering in electron diffraction and imaging establishes the theory of high-angle annular dark field imaging (HAADF) (so called Z contrast) in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM).[13]
Wang has authored and co-authored 6 scientific reference and textbooks and over 1500 peer reviewed journal articles (55 in Nature, Science and their family journals), 45 review papers and book chapters, edited and co-edited 14 volumes of books on nanotechnology, and held over 60 US and foreign patents. His Google scholar citation can be found at [1]. His google scholar citation is over 231,000 with an h-index of over 236. Wang is ranked No. 1 in Google Scholar public profiles in Nanotechnology & Nanoscience both in total citations and h-index impacts: [2]; in Highly Cited Researchers (h>100) according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles, Wang is ranked No. 21 in all fields: [3]. Wang is ranked No. 15 among 100,000 scientists worldwide across all fields: [4]. The ranking was made based on six citation metrics (total citations; Hirsch h-index; coauthorship-adjusted Schreiber hm-index; number of citations to papers as single author; number of citations to papers as single or first author; and number of citations to papers as single, first, or last author).
Wang's major scientific contributions[]
1. Science and technology of nanogenerators:
1.1 Invented piezoelectric nanogenerators and pioneered the field of self-powered systems. The first report on the piezoelectric nanogenerators was carried out by Prof. Wang in 2016.[4] The electricity was generated by harvesting mechanical energy using ZnO nanowire arrays. He first introduced the areas of nano-energy and self-powered systems in 2006. These areas of study lead to the creation of nanomaterials and nanodevices. They are highly efficient energy harvesting from the ambient environment. Such devices have essential applications in sensor networks, mobile electronics, and the internet of things.
1.2 Invented triboelectric nanogenerators for harvesting distributed energy. Before the invention of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) by Prof. Wang in 2011,[14] the mechanical energy harvesting mainly relies on the electromagnetic generator (EMG) first invented by Faraday in 1831. The EMG is most efficient for high-frequency mechanical motions, such as more than 10–60 Hz, because at a low frequency, the outputs of EMG are rather low. The high-quality and regulated energy at a high frequency plays important roles in constructing our today's energy system. However, the distributed energy becomes more and more important, because the era has marched into the internet of things and artificial intelligence. The TENGs have shown obvious advantages over the EMG in harvesting low-frequency mechanical energy from the environment. The energy conversion based on TENG relies on contact-electrification and electrostatic induction effects, and the efficiency can reach 50–85%.[7][15][16][17][18][19] The maximum output power density obtained so far is up to 500 W/m2.[19] The TENGs can harvest energy from many kinds of sources, and have important applications in self-powered systems for portable electronics, biomedicine, environmental monitoring, and even large-scale power. So Prof. Wang is referred to as the father of nanogenerators.
1.3 Developed hybrid cell. In practice, the sustainable operation of device usually cannot be realized by scavenging only one type of energy. Wang first proposed the idea of simultaneously harvesting two or more different types of energy by using one device. In 2009, Wang realized the idea in the experiments, where a hybrid cell was developed to harvest the mechanical and solar energy.[20] Besides multiple types of energy, the hybrid cell also includes the case of using two different approaches to harvest the same type of energy.
1.4 Built the first pyroelectric nanogenerator. Thermalelectric effect is a physical effect that applies the temperature gradient along a thermalelectric material to generate electricity. And in a piezoelectric material, the time variation of temperature can also cause the polarization for power conversion, which is the pyroelectric effect. In 2012, based on the pyroelectric effect, the first pyroelectric nanogenerator was first built by Wang.[21]
1.5 Coined the field of blue energy. The TENGs invented by Wang have been proved to be capable of harvesting water wave energy at a low frequency. However, using the traditional EMG technology, it is almost impossible in practice. In 2014, Wang proposed the idea of blue energy, in which using millions of TENG units to form a TENG network floating on water surface for large-scale wave energy harvesting.[22] Such energy source has exhibited obvious advantages relative to other energy sources, because it has little dependence on weather and climate conditions. If one TENG unit can generate a power of 10 mW, the total power for the area equal to the size of Georgia state and 10 m depth of water is theoretically predicted to be 16 TW, which can meet the energy needs of the world. This initiative opens the new chapter for large-scale blue energy.[23]
1.6 Established the theory of nanogenerators from the Maxwell's displacement current. In 1861, Maxwell proposed the main term ε