Hua Zhang
First and last name: Hua Zhang
Title: Herman Hu Chair Professor of Nanomaterials
Affiliation: City University of Hong Kong
Address: Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Preferred contact number: +852-34424102
Website(s): ttps://www.cityu.edu.hk/chem/people/academic-staff/HZHANG
Short Biography:
Dr. Hua Zhang obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees at Nanjing University in China in 1992 and 1995, respectively, and completed his Ph.D. with Prof. Zhongfan Liu at Peking University in China in July 1998. He joined Prof. Frans C. De Schryver’s group at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium as a Research Associate in January 1999. Then he moved to Prof. Chad A. Mirkin’s group at Northwestern University as a Postdoctoral Fellow in July 2001. After worked at NanoInk Inc. (USA) in August 2003, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore in November 2005, he joined Nanyang Technological University (NTU) as an Assistant Professor in July 2006, and was promoted to a tenured Associate Professor on March 1, 2011 and Full Professor on Sept. 1, 2013. In 2019, he joined City University of Hong Kong as a Chair Professor, and currently he is the Herman Hu Chair Professor of Nanomaterials. He has published filed over 100 patent applications, and published over 600 papers including Nature and Science. As at June 2025, the total cited times are over 140,100 with H-index of 187 (Web of Science), and over 159,700 with H-index of 197 (Google Scholar). He has organized several tens of international conferences and served as the Conference (Co-)Chair or Symposium Chair.
Abstract:
In this talk, I will summarize the recent research on phase engineering of nanomaterials (PEN) in my group, particularly focusing on the rational design and synthesis of novel 2D nanomaterials with unconventional phases for various promising applications. For example, by using gas-solid reactions, metastable 1T'-phase group VI transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), e.g., WS2, WSe2, MoS2, MoSe2, WS2xSe2(1-x) and MoS2xSe2(1-x), have been prepared. Moreover, the salt-assisted 2H-to-1T' phase transformation of TMDs have been achieved, and the phase transformation of TMDs during our developed electrochemical Li-intercalation process has been observed. Impressively, the lithiation-induced amorphization of Pd3P2S8 has been achieved. Currently, my group focuses on the investigation of phase-dependent physicochemical properties and applications in catalysis, (opto-)electronic devices, clean energy, chemical and biosensors, surface enhanced Raman scattering, photothermal therapy, etc., which we believe is quite unique and very important not only in fundamental studies, but also in future practical applications. Importantly, the concept of phase engineering of nanomaterials (PEN) is proposed.