Our group leverages advanced electron microscopy to observe the physical and chemical processes in materials at nano or atomic resolution, with the aim of understanding why certain materials have excellent properties and why others fail. The ultimate goal is to gain fundamental insights into the mechanisms that will enable the creation of better materials with significantly improved performance. We are particularly interested in the following grand challenges related to sustainability:

  • Materials that can withstand extreme environments (high temperature, corrosion, mechanical deformation, etc.) in fusion energy systems.
  • Enhancement of lithium-ion batteries.
  • Green steel production: Currently, the extraction of iron from ore generates 7% of the world’s CO2 emissions every year.

Our work is highly interdisciplinary, involving knowledge in Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science, and Mechanical Engineering. We welcome self-motivated students with a major in one of the aforementioned areas. Besides experiments, our routine work also requires a lot of coding in Python (using libraries such as NumPy, Matplotlib, and some machine learning, etc.) to analyze the data. Students need to be interested in learning coding.

Prospective Ph.D. students

Currently, we have one opening for Ph.D. students. Please send a CV to Prof. Yang by email.

Undergraduate researchers

Junior or senior students with a background in science and engineering are welcome to join us. Please send a CV to Prof. Yang by email.

  • How to apply to the Ph.D. program in Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM)
  • How to apply to the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program (IGDP) in Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE)
  • J1 English requirement for postdoc and interns.