Dr Xiangbing Zeng

PhD MSc BSc

School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering

Senior Lecturer in Polymers and Liquid Crystals

Profile photo of Xiangbing Zeng
Profile picture of Profile photo of Xiangbing Zeng
x.zeng@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 5948

Full contact details

Dr Xiangbing Zeng
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

Xiangbing Zeng was appointed as Lecturer in Polymers and Liquid Crystals in 2003. Formerly a research in the Polymer, Liquid Crystal and Supramolecular Structures Group, he obtained his PhD in 2001.

Research interests

Dr Zengs' research areas can be divided into two broad directions: one on polymer physics, in particular the polymer crystallisation process; the other on self-assembly, which covers systems such as supra-molecules, liquid crystals, more recently LC covered nanoparticles.

On the polymer side, he is involved in an eight-institution international collaboration supported under NSF-EPSRC Pire scheme, for developing new materials from natural sources for applications in the sustainable energy industry. On the self-assembly side, a research project on “Liquid quasicrystals and their approximants”, supported by Leverhulme Trust, started in 2013.

Another important aspect of his research on self–organized systems is to develop new nanomaterials for tailored optical and electrical properties. For example, metamaterials by self-assembled gold nanoparticles have been fabricated, by covering them with liquid crystal-forming molecules.

Dr Zeng has ample experience with scattering methods (X-ray and neutron) for characterisation of nanoscale structures, which often involve the use of large scale facilities such as synchrotron radiation sources (e.g. Diamond, ESRF) and neutron sources (ISIS, ILL). Other microscopic (optical, SEM, TEM, AFM) and spectroscopic (FTIR, UV-Vis, Raman etc) methods are employed whenever necessary.

Research impact:

The discovery of the first quasicrystalline structure at nanoscale, which has opened a new field of research published recently in several articles in Science and Nature. The original paper (Nature, 2004, doi:10.1038/nature02368) has been cited over 200 times so far.

Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

  • Percec V, Rosen B, Roche C, Partridge B, Sun H-J, Leowanawat P, Peterca M, Araoka F, Zeng X, Ungar G & Heiney P (2016) Why are biological systems homochiral?. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 252 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Partridge B, Roche C, Sun H-J, Leowanawat P, Araoka F, Sahoo D, Peterca M, Wilson D, Prendergast M, Zeng X , Ungar G et al (2016) Mechanisms for supramolecular helical polymerization into crystalline arrays of chiral columns. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 252 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Partridge B, Leowanawat P, Ho M-S, Peterca M, Sun H-J, Sahoo D, Wu Y-C, Aqad E, Imam M, Graf R , Spiess H et al (2016) Thermodynamically controlled crystallization of self-organizing supramolecular assemblies. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 252 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Roche C, Partridge B, Sun H-J, Leowanawat P, Araoka F, Peterca M, Wilson D, Prendergast M, Zeng X, Ungar G , Heiney P et al (2016) Deracemization of supramolecular assemblies in bulk crystal state. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 252 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Kanie K, Matsubara M, Stevenson W, Yamazaki Y, Yabuki J, Kojima K, Nakaya M, Chichibu SF, Muramatsu A, Zeng X & Ungar G (2016) Liquid-crystalline organic-inorganic hybrid dendrimer with a CdS nano-core: The self-organized structure-dependent photoluminescence behavior. 22nd International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, CHISA 2016 and 19th Conference on Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction, PRES 2016, Vol. 2 (pp 795-796) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Leowanawat P, Aqad E, Imam MR, Sun H-J, Peterca M, Hudson SD, Ungar G, Zeng X, Graf R, Spiess HW , Heiney PA et al (2012) Self-assembly and self-repairing of complex helical columns based on dendronized perylene bisimides. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 244 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Tadjiev T, Zeng X, Peterca M, Ungar G, Percec V & Leowanawat P (2012) Dendronized perylene bisimides: Soft-crystal structure key to high charge mobility. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 244 RIS download Bibtex download
  • Zeng XB, Liu YS, Ungar G, Percec V & Dulcey AE (2004) Dendrimeric liquid quasicrystal.. ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, Vol. 228 (pp U500-U500) RIS download Bibtex download
  • De Silva DSM, Zeng XB, Ungar G & Spells SJ (2003) On perpendicular and tilted chains in lamellar crystals. Journal of Macromolecular Science - Physics, Vol. 42 B(3-4 SPEC.) (pp 915-927) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Zeng XB & Ungar G (2002) Semicrystalline and superlattice structures in binary mixture of long chain n-alkanes C194H390 and C294H590. JOURNAL OF MACROMOLECULAR SCIENCE-PHYSICS, Vol. B41(4-6) (pp 1305-1320) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Ungar G, Zeng XB & Spells SJ (2000) Non-integer and mixed integer forms in long n-alkanes observed by real-time LAM spectroscopy and SAXS. POLYMER, Vol. 41(25) (pp 8775-8780) RIS download Bibtex download
  • Zeng XB & Ungar G (1998) Lamellar structure of non-integer folded and extended long-chain n-alkanes by small-angle X-ray diffraction. POLYMER, Vol. 39(19) (pp 4523-4533) RIS download Bibtex download

Preprints