Awarded by the American Physical Society, the prize was established in 1997 'To recognize and encourage outstanding achievement in the science and application of new materials. This shall include the discovery of new classes of materials, the observation of novel phenomena in known materials leading to both fundamentally new applications and scientific insights, and shall also include theoretical and experimental work contributing significantly to the understanding of such phenomena.'
Dr. Z.L. Wang received his Ph.D in Physics from Arizona State University in 1987, and he is a now the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, Regents' Professor, College of Engineering Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Nanostructure Characterization, at Georgia Tech. He served as a Visiting Lecturer in SUNY (1987-1988), Stony Brook, as a research fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (England) (1988-1989), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1989-1993) and at National Institute of Standards and Technology (1993-1995) before joining Georgia Tech in 1995.
Dr. Wang is the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, Regents' Professor, Engineering Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Nanostructure Characterization, at Georgia Tech.
He has made original and innovative contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization and understanding of fundamental physical properties of oxide nanobelts and nanowires, as well as applications of nanowires in energy sciences, electronics, optoelectronics and biological science. He is the leader figure in ZnO nanostructure research. His discovery and breakthroughs in developing nanogenerators establish the principle and technological road map for harvesting mechanical energy from environment and biological systems for powering a personal electronics. His research on self-powered nanosystems has inspired the worldwide effort in academia and industry for studying energy for micro-nano-systems, which is now a distinct disciplinary in energy research and future sensor networks. He coined and pioneered the field of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics by introducing piezoelectric potential gated charge transport process in fabricating new electronic and optoelectronic devices. This historical breakthrough by redesign CMOS transistor has important applications in smart MEMS/NEMS, nanorobotics, human-electronics interface and sensors. Wang also invented and pioneered the in-situ technique for measuring the mechanical and electrical properties of a single nanotube/nanowire inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM).
Congratulations to Dr. Wang for receiving such a prestigious award!
