MMAE Seminar - Dr. Yang Ren - Synchrotron X-rays and Neutrons for Fundamental Study of Advanced Materials

Armour College of Engineering's Mechanical, Materials & Aerospace Engineering Department will welcome Dr. Yang Ren, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, on Wednesday, November 8th, to present his lecture, Synchrotron X-rays and Neutrons for Fundamental Study of Advanced Materials.

Abstract

Synchrotron x-ray and neutron facilities are very popular and indispensable scientific resources and provide powerful instruments and experimental techniques for both fundamental and applied researches. X-rays and neutrons interact with matter in different ways, thus are often used as complementary tools for studying materials in order to understand their properties at the electronic, atomic and molecular levels. We have been developing and utilizing neutron and synchrotron x-ray techniques to investigate a large variety of materials for broad technological applications. In this talk, we will discuss the difference and similarity of synchrotron x-rays and neutrons, and their complementary use in fundamental research of advanced materials, including transforming metal nanocomposites, ferroelectric ceramics, nanoparticles and rechargeable batteries. The knowledge of the atomic and electronic level structures and their evolution in realistic conditions provides important information for better understanding material properties and for further improvement of their performance and functionality.

Biography

Yang Ren is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory. He received his M.S. in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science in 1988, and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands in 1996. He is currently a lead beam line scientist for a high-energy x-ray beamline at the Advanced Photon Source. 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 more than 400 papers in scientific journals.