ZYP

Yuanpeng Zhang

Neutron Scattering Scientist

Working as neutron scattering scientist at ORNL, Dr. Yuanpeng Zhang has been actively involved in software development and scientific research activities. The software development part mainly involves the development and maintenance of tools for neutron scattering data reduction and analysis, such as ADDIE environment for neutron total scattering data reduction, ADDIE web interface for structure mining and online Bragg and pair distribution function refinement, RMCProfile package for fitting scattering data based on supercell approach. Meanwhile, he is also interfacing the beamline scientists team and the software development team at ORNL, actively working on the development of Mantid framework for powder diffraction data reduction.

His research interest mainly focuses on the application of neutron total scattering to look at local structure of materials - both nucleus and magnetic. The local environment plays an important role in determining properties in a wide range of functional materials, e.g., the polarization behavior in ferroelectric materials, ion transportation behavior in energy story materials, magnetic anisotropy in low dimensional magnetic systems, etc. His research interest at this point is to utilize total scattering technique to reveal local structure for energy storage (e.g. Li-ion battery, functional material (high entropy spinel materials) and low dimensional magnetic system (e.g. 2D vdWs magnetic materials). For futuristic perspective, using machine learning algorithms in phase recognition during phase transition is one of the goals to pursue.

  • 2024 Mentor of the year, first place, by ORNL postdoc association
  • 2023 NSD Doing it Better Award
  • 2022 NSD Best Paper Award
  • 2021 NSD Division Director Award
  • PhD degree: Queen Mary, University of London (2012 - 2016)
  • Bachelor degree: Beihang University (2008 - 2012)
  • ICDD member of the Synchrotron & Neutron Scattering Methods Subcommittee