Zhonglin Wang

Dr. Zhong Lin (ZL) Wang received his PhD from Arizona State University in 1987. He is the Hightower Chair in Materials Science and Engineering and Regents' Professor at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Wang has made original and seminal contributions to the synthesis, discovery, characterization and understanding of fundamental physical properties of oxide nanobelts and nanowires, and their applications in energy sciences, sensors, electronics and optoelectronics. He is the world leader 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 mobile sensors. He first showed that the nanogenerator is originated from the Maxwell’s displacement current, revived the applications of Maxwell’s equations in energy and sensors, which is 155 years later after the invention of electromagnetic wave based on displacement current. His research on self-powered nanosystems has inspired the worldwide effort in academia and industry for harvesting ambient energy for micro-nano-systems, which is now a distinct disciplinary in energy science for future sensor networks and internet of things. He coined and pioneered the fields of piezotronics and piezo-phototronics by introducing piezoelectric potential gated charge transport process in fabricating strain-gated transistors for new electronics, optoelectronics, sensors and energy sciences. The piezotronic transistors have 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).