Speaker Name: Dongchang Chen, University of New Mexico

Seminar Title: Advancing Solid-State Chemistry toward New Frontiers in Electrochemical Energy Storage

Seminar Abstract: "In the past two decades, solid-state materials chemistry has brought about an immense economic growth and societal development. The most notable example is the emergence of various materials for Li-ion batteries applications. After years of commercialized applications on a global scale, however, the field has realized that the current battery materials are far from perfect in many aspects. Such an issue is fundamentally rooted in the disconnection between the research of fundamental solid-state materials science and performance-driven materials development. In this presentation, I will demonstrate our research effort in pushing the scientific forefront of solid-state electrochemical energy storage. Specifically, we combine knowledge-based materials design, crystallography, and solid-state spectroscopy as a closely integrated approach to discover fundamentally new energy storage phenomena and explore fundamentally new energy storage materials. Results of the work will bring transformative insights for various subfields of solid-state science and relevant investigation of composition-structure-function relationship."

Speaker Bio: Dongchang Chen is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of New Mexico, since 2021. He obtained his B.S. in Chemical Physics at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011 and his Ph. D. at Georgia institution of technology in 2017. Prior to joining UNM, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. His research mainly focuses on 1. methodology development of solid-state chemistry, 2. understanding the relationship between electronic, vibrational, and electrochemical properties of solid-state materials, and 3. developing novel microscopic/spectroscopic tools for studying electrochemical processes.