Schlumberger Annual Materials Science Lecture

On September 22, 2017, the Division of Materials Science & Engineering hosted the first Schlumberger Annual Materials Science Lecture.  The featured speaker, Dr. Hongjie Dai, Stanford University, presented a lecture on Carbon Based Nanosciences.

Professor Honghie DaiDr. Hongjie Dai has made fundamental contributions to nanosciences especially to novel carbon-based nanomaterials. Dr. Dai developed widely adopted chemical vapor deposition for carbon nanotubes; invented the first electrical nanosensors using nanotube transistors; pushed nanotube transistors to the ballistic limit; pioneered nano-carbon biological applications for novel imaging and therapy; and invented new electrocatalysts and the aluminum-ion battery.

Professor David BishopProfessor David Bishop, Head of the Division of Materials Science & Engineering gave a brief welcome to everyone.
Professor Lawrence ZieglerProfessor Lawrence Ziegler,
organizer and faculty host of the lecture, and Associate Head of the Division of Materials Science & Engineering introduced the speakers.


Schlumberger_MaterialsScience_Lecture_0112Dr. Meng Qu,
Senior Research Scientist at Schlumberger-Doll Research gave an introductory talk on how her team develops materials for oil and gas applications such as plug and abandonment (P&A) and drill bit.  She discussed how her team focuses on understanding the fundamental science of each material, and applies this knowledge to guide material design and development.


Dr. Hongjie Dai,
Professor at Stanford University, first briefly reviewed his earlier work on carbon nanomaterials including carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons, and fluorescence and fluorescence imaging in the previously unexplored 1000-1700 nmNIR-II window to benefit from greatly suppressed photon scattering at long wavelengths.Schlumberger_MaterialsScience_Lecture_0304

The second part of the talk focused on Dr. Dai’s work on advancing new types of electrocatalysts for renewable catalyst applications and the development of novel batteries. He talked about achieving record setting performance of electrocatalysts for water splitting including HER and OER. He showed how his lab has developed a novel Ni/NiO heterostructured hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst and a NiFe layered double hydroxide (NiFe LDH) oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst to enable water splitting using a record low voltage of < 1.5 volt, making it possible to make an electrolyzer for hydrogen and oxygen gas generation running on a single AAA alkaline battery cell.

The talk was followed by a wine & cheese reception in the Photonics 9th floor atrium.

Read more about Dr. Dai’s research here.