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Fan Zhang
Physicist
Fan Zhang is a Physicist at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. He specializes in multi-scale materials characterization using synchrotron-based scattering, diffraction, and imaging methods. His current research interests include:
- Additive manufacturing of metals. We use synchrotron-based scattering, diffraction, and imaging methods to investigate the microstructural and phase evolution of additively manufactured alloys to establish the fundamentally important processing, structure, and behavior relationship.
- Structure and microstructure characterization of advanced materials using scattering methods, ranging from segmented copolymers, nanoparticles, organic-inorganic gels, to alloys.
- Small angle X-ray scattering: including instrumentation, methodology development, algorithm development, and data analysis.
- Dynamics of complex fluids and advanced functional materials. We have developed a version of X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) in the ultra-small angle regime that is capable of elucidating the equilibrium dynamics of optically opaque, concentrated colloidal suspensions in both aqueous and nonaqueous environments, as well as slow, nonequilibrium dynamics in industrially important advanced functional materials such as self-repairing dental composites.
Selected Professional Services
- Member, Vice Chair, Chair. Advanced Photon Source User Organization Steering Committee, 2019-2022.
- Secretary, TMS Advanced Characterization, Testing, and Simulation Committee, 2020-2022.
- Member, Neutron Sciences Science Review Committee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2015-2020.
- Member, Small Angle X-ray Scattering Proposal Review Panel, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, 2012-2015.
- Lecturer, Beyond Rg Small Angle Scattering Short Course, Advanced Photon Source, 2012, 2015.
Selected Awards
- Department of Commerce Bronze Medal, 2019.
- TMS Nagy El-Kaddah Award in Material Processing, 2020.
Featured Research
- Putting the Heat on an Additive-Manufactured Alloy
- Precipitation Kinetics and Development Pathway of the Most Widely Used Aircraft Alloy
- Animatedly Suspended X-ray Observations
- Unveiling the Secrets of Nanoparticle Haloing
Research Opportunities
National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship – Open to U.S. citizens with an annual stipend of $71,128 per year. Applications are due on either Feb. 1 or Aug. 1. Contact me if interested in an NRC post-doc for researching additive manufacturing of alloys using synchrotron-based scattering, diffraction and imaging methods; or small angle X-ray scattering in general.