News

05/2025: Jacob, Felipe, Lukas and Joshua joined the group as summer REU students! Nick started as a new undergraduate research student in the group. Welcome!
04/2025: Congratulations to Anna on winning the Best MSEN Graduate Student Paper of the Year!!
03/2025: Our alumnus, Dr. Doyun Kim, has officially started as an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea! Congratulations, Prof. Kim!! Check his group website here.
02/2025: In the last week of Feb, Qing delivered an invited talk at the ACerS Electronics and Applied Materials (EMA) 2025 in Symposium S12 – Characterization and Application of Semiconductor Materials (Thanks to the symposium organizer, Drs. Aiping Chen and Wanyi Nie), and gave seminars in National Institute of Standards and Technology – Nanoscale Reliability Group (Thanks to the host, Dr. Jason Killgore), the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado – Boulder (Thanks to the host, Prof. Longji Cui), and The Factory – Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Research Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University (Thanks to the hosts, Profs. Zhe Cheng and Kaka Ma). It was a great week with fruitful discussions. A lot of collaborations will come in the near future!
02/2025: Anna’s first leading-author paper entitled “Dielectric Breakdown of 2D Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites” was just accepted by ACS Energy Letters! This is a collaborative work with Prof. Mercouri Kanatzidis (Northwestern) and Prof. Ioannis Spanopoulos (U of South Florida). Arushi is also a co-author of the paper. Congratulations to the team!
12/2024: Our group received a grant from TAMUS National Lab Office to study the semiconductor behavior of 2D metal halide perovskites. This is a collaboration with Drs. Amanda Neukirch and Aaron Forde at Los Alamos National Lab. Congratulations to the team!
12/2024: Our group received a grant from TAMU Office of Research to investigate the mechanical behavior of 2D metal halide perovskites. This is a collaboration with Prof. Wei Gao at the Mechanical Engineering Department at TAMU. Congratulations to the team!
12/2024: Our co-authored paper entitled “Designing Robust Quasi-2D Perovskites Thin Films for Stable Light-Emitting Applications” was just accepted by Advanced Materials. Congratulations to the team!
11/2024: Qing and Shengjia attended IMECE conference and presented our recent work on the mechanics of 2D metal halide perovskites. It is great to reconnect with many friends and make new friends in the research community. Together with Jun Liu (NCSU) and Wei Gao (TAMU), Qing also organized a symposium in the Structure-Processing-Property Relationship of Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Materials for Energy Applications and chaired one session. Looking forward to IMECE 2025.
10/2024: Qing gave a guest lecture on the structure-property relationship of 2D perovskites to the students in the Chemistry for Advanced Materials class at the University of South Florida (Virtual). Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Ioannis Spanopoulos.
10/2024: Qing gave an invited talk on the mechanical behavior of 2D perovskites at the ASME Nanotechnology group lighting talk series online. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Jun Liu (NCSU) and Prof. Bo Li (Villanova University)!
09/2024: Anna received the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Travel Grants from the American Vacuum Society (AVS) and Qing received the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) Faculty Travel grant. Congratulations! We will attend the coming AVS and IMECE conferences to present our most recent works.
08/2024: Anna and Shengjia passed their PhD qualifying exams with flying colors. Congratulations!
07/2024: Our co-authored paper entitled “Temperature-Induced Phase Transition in 2D Alkylammonium Lead Halide Perovskites: A Molecular Dynamics Study” was just accepted by ACS Nano. It will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
06/2024: Doyun’s 5th first-author paper is accepted by Advanced Functional Materials and will be online soon. It is a collaboration with Prof. Wanyi Nie (SUNY Buffalo) and Dr. Jinkyoung Yoo (Los Alamos National Lab). Congratulations to the team!
06/2024: Shyla Peterson (PVAMU) and Gannon Amendola join the group as REU students in the summer. Welcome!
05/2024: Our paper, “Anomalous Correlation between Thermal Conductivity and Elastic Modulus in Two-Dimensional Hybrid Metal Halide Perovskites”, was just accepted by ACS Nano. Congratulations to the team!
05/2024: Our undergraduate alumni, Matthew Betz and Phillips Starnes, won the MSEN Senior Award on Engagement. Congratulations!
05/2024: Doyun’s thesis, “Mechanical Properties of Emerging 2D Semiconductors”, is selected to receive the 2024 Best MSEN Ph.D. Thesis Award. Congratulations to Doyun!
04/2024: Our co-authored paper, “High-Throughput Combinatorial Approach to the Synthesis of a Lead-Free Relaxor Ferroelectrics System”, was just accepted by InfoMat! Congratulations to the team!
03/2024: Qing attended the TMS conference (Orlando, FL) and presented our recent work on the fatigue behavior of 2D metal halide perovskites. We had a lot of good discussions at the conference.
02/2024: Qing shared the research opportunities in our lab with the first-year Regent’s scholars (undergraduate engineering students) in the Engineering Learning Community & Student Success Seminar (CLEN 181). Thanks to the invitation from Dr. Samuel Merriweather, the senior director of the Access and Inclusion program in the College of Engineering!
02/2024: Shengjia attended the Texas Land Grants Day and presented his work on the radiation effect on metal halide perovskites. Well done!
01/2024: Our Undergraduate, Gannon Amendola, won the Samsung Austin Semiconductor Fellowship and will work on the mechanical reliability of emerging 2D metal halide perovskites. Congratulations!
01/2024: Qing is selected as the recipient of the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing Best Reviewer Award. Congratulations!
12/2023: The group had a small gathering to celebrate the end of the semester and welcome Dr. Leepsa Mishra to join our group as a postdoc!
12/2023: Qing is elected as the Secretary for the Advanced Materials for Energy Technical Committee – ASME Materials Division. Looking forward to serving this vibrant community!
12/2023: Qing gave a talk on our recent work about the fatigue behavior of 2D perovskites remotely at the MRS fall meeting. Thanks to the symposium organizers!
12/2023: Shengjia and Anna attended “Materials Expo – 10 years of Materializing the Future” and presented posters about their research to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the MSEN department! Good Job!
11/2023: Our co-authored paper, “Synthesis and Optical Properties of One-Year Air-Stable Chiral Sb(III) Halide Semiconductors”, is accepted by Inorganic Chemistry, which will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
10/2023: Qing shared the research opportunities in our lab with the first-year Regent’s scholars (undergraduate engineering students) in the Engineering Learning Community & Student Success Seminar (CLEN 181). Thanks to the invitation from Dr. Samuel Merriweather, the senior director of the Access and Inclusion program in the College of Engineering!
10/2023: Qing attended a workshop in the Initiative of Sustainable Energy (ISE) at Brown University and gave a short talk about the group’s recent progress on the mechanics of metal halide perovskites. The workshop brought together academia, national labs, and industry to identify current challenges and future pathways toward a sustainable society. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Nitin Padture, who is leading the ISE at Brown.
10/2023: The group had a gathering to celebrate Doyun’s graduation and see him off to his next stop. He is going to join Prof. Yong Zhu’s group at NCSU as a postdoc. Good luck with your future endeavors!

10/2023: Qing gave a guest lecture on the structure-property relationship of 2D metal halide perovskite in the Chemistry for Advanced Materials class at the University of South Florida. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Ioannis Spanopoulos!
10/2023: Qing gave an invited talk on our recent studies of the in-plane thermo-mechanical and fatigue properties of 2D metal halide perovskites at the 2023 Society of Engineering Science Annual Meeting Symposium 10-7: Mixed Low-Dimensional Nanomaterials. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Chenglin Wu and Prof. Mohammad Naraghi.
09/2023: Eason’s first visit to the lab. He loves AFM just like his father!
09/2023: Doyun successfully defended his PhD! Congratulations, Dr. Kim!
09/2023: Qing delivered an invited talk on our mechanical studies of metal halide perovskites at the Center of Integrated Nanotechnology User Meeting held in Santa Fe, NM. Thanks to the invitation from Dr. Jinkyoung Yoo. We reconnected with many old friends and made many new friends. Many ideas and collaborations were discussed. Great conference! Thanks to the organizers!
08/2023: Together with Prof. Cosmi Lin in our department, we installed a new Park System NX-10 AFM in our glovebox! This is the third AFM in our group and will provide unique capabilities to study air-sensitive electronic and battery materials!! Prof. Qian joined the celebration of the successful installation.
08/2023: Mengru (Anna) Jin and Shengjia Zhang joined our group as PhD students. Welcome!
08/2023：We hosted groups of incoming first-year engineering students and some high school students through the Engineering Summer Bridge Program and showed some cool research enabled by AFM!
08/2023: Our work on the fatigue properties of 2D hybrid perovskites is covered by AZO Materials and the College of Engineering at TAMU. Check it out.
07/2023: Our coauthored paper, “Effects of Hole Transporting PEDOT:PSS on Photoemission of Upconverted Hot Electrons in Mn-doped CdS/ZnS Quantum Dots”, is accepted by the Journal of Chemical Physics and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
07/2023: Our coauthored paper, “Synthesis and Exceptional Operational Durability of Polyaniline-Inspired Conductive Ladder Polymers”, is accepted by Materials Horizons and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
06/2023: Doyun’s 4th first-authored paper, “Unveiling the Fatigue Behavior of 2D Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites: Insights for Long-Term Durability”, is accepted by Advanced Science and will be online soon. Congratulations!
06/2023: We received a grant to explore the mechanical behavior of 2D perovskites. Thanks for the support from NSF!
05/2023: Right after the final, we had a small gathering. We celebrated the graduation of Yeonju Yu, who will start her PhD study with Prof. Patrick Shamberger at MSEN/TAMU. We saw off Doyun Kim, who will start a summer internship at Los Alamos National Lab, working with our collaborator, Dr. Wanyi Nie. We also welcomed Dr. Chang Woo Kim, who is an associate professor in the Department of Nanotechnology Engineering at Pukyong National University, South Korea, and will spend the following 11 months in our lab as a visiting scholar. The BBQ at Texas is always good.
05/2023: Matt is selected by the TAMU Undergraduate Summer Research Grant Program and will work with us to study the current-induced heating in LEDs based on metal-halide perovskites. Congratulations, Matt!
05/2023: Our co-authored paper, “Friction characteristics of two-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites”, is accepted by Experimental Mechanics and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team.
04/2023: Doyun’s 3rd first-author paper has been just accepted for publication in ACS Applied Nano Materials and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
04/2023: Dr. Tu visited PVAMU Electrical Engineering Department and delivered a guest lecture in Electronic and Photonic Materials and Devices (ELEG 4223). Thanks for the invitation from Prof. Richard Wilkins.
04/2023: Our proposal (together with Prof. Richard Wilkins at PVAMU) is selected for funding by the TAMU-PVAMU PRISE program. Congratulations to the team and look forward to the collaboration!
03/2023: Dr. Tu gave an invited talk at the Functional Nanomaterials symposium – TMS 2023 Annual Meeting & Exhibitions. Thanks for the invitation from Prof. Changhong Cao (McGill University) and Prof. Michael Wang (University of South Florida)!
03/2023: Yeonju successfully defended her master’s thesis. Congratulations!
02/2023: Dr. Tu gave an invited talk (virtual) in the Complex Fluids and Soft Matter Online Seminar Series. Thanks for the invitation from Prof. Jiaoyan Li (the University at Buffalo) and Prof. Zhen Li (Clemson University)!
01/2023: Doyun’s 2nd first-author paper was just accepted for publication on ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Congratulations to Doyun and the team!
01/2023: Our co-authored paper “Tautomerism Unveils a Self-inhibition Mechanism of Crystallization” has just been accepted by Nature Communications. Congratulations!
12/2022: Dr. Tu gave an invited talk (virtual) to the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University at Buffalo on the Mechanics of 2D perovskites. Thanks for the invitation by Prof. Jun Liu!
12/2022: Our co-authored review article “Recent Development of Halide Perovskite Materials and Devices for Ionizing Radiation Detection” is accepted by Chemical Reviews and will be online soon. Congratulations!
11/2022: Our co-authored paper “Highly Conductive and Ultra-strong Carbon Nanotube-Copper Core-Shell Wires as High-Performance Power Transmission Cables” is accepted by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces and will be online soon. Congratulations!
11/2022: Dr. Qing Tu co-organized a symposium on the Mechanics of Low Dimensional Materials and presented the fatigue studies of 2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites at ASME-IMECE in Columbus, OH.
10/2022: Dr. Qing Tu is recognized as an Outstanding Referee by Communications Materials, a Nature Publishing Group journal. Congratulations!
10/2022: Qing gave a guest lecture on the structure-mechanical-property relationship of 2D metal halide perovskite in the Chemistry for Advanced Materials class at the University of South Florida. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Ioannis Spanopoulos!
10/2022: Dr. Qing Tu visited the University of Houston and delivered an invited talk in the Department of Chemistry. Thanks to the invitation from Prof. Naihao Chiang and Prof. Eric Brittner.
10/2022: Society of Engineering Science annual meeting comes to TAMU this year. Dr. Qing Tu co-organized a symposium on “Mechanically-Coupled and Surface-Enabled Functionality in 2D Materials” and Doyun presented his work on the thermo-mechanical behavior of 2D metal halide perovskites at this conference. Congratulations!
10/2022: Dr. Qing Tu visited Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) and delivered an invited talk at the Center of Integrated Nanotechnology. It was great to see the state-of-the-art facilities and meet many new friends. Many new collaborations will start soon. Thanks to Dr. Wanyi Nie and Michael Pettes for the invitation and host.
08/2022: Doyun just passed his prelim examination and Kyeong Yeon passed her qualifying exam. Congratulations to you both!
07/2022: Our co-authored paper “Soil-Like Material for Responsive Matrices and Microbial Modulation” has been accepted for publication in Nature Chemistry and will soon be online. Congratulations to the team!
07/2022: Dr. Qing Tu delivered an invited talk at Telluride Science & Research Center Workshop on “Electronic and Structural Dynamics in Hybrid Perovskites: Theory Meets Experiments”. Thanks for the invitation from Dr. Wanyi Nie and other workshop organizers! We saw a lot of old friends and met many new friends. The view of the mountainside is breathtaking.
05/2022: Our co-authored paper “Submillimeter-scale Multimaterial Terrestrial Robots” has been accepted by Science Robotics and is online now. Congratulations to the team!
05/2022: Dr. Qing Tu is selected to receive the 2022 LANL Development Fellowship. The grant will support a collaboration project between Tu Research Lab at TAMU and Dr. Wanyi Nie’s lab at Los Alamos National Lab in Summer 2022. Thanks to the support from TAMUS National Laboratories Office.
04/2022: the undergraduate capstone design team (mentored by Dr. Qing Tu together with our industrial partner, Dr. Piyush Thakre from Dow) won the first place prize within Materials Science & Engineering in the 2022 Engineering Project Showcase Competition. Congratulations to the team members: William Bryan, Ngoc Vhu, and Gualberto De La Garza!
04/2022: Our co-authored paper “Thick-Layer Lead Iodide Perovskites with Bifunctional Organic Spacers Allylammonium and Iodopropylammonium Exhibiting Trap-State Emission” has been accepted by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Congratulations to the team!
01/2022: We received a grant to explore the process-structure-property relationship of carbon nanofibers from petroleum pitch. Thanks to the support from ExxonMobil.
01/2022: Our co-authored paper “Topochemical Stabilization and Transformations of Single Crystals of Metastable 2D γ’-V2O5: Atomic-Resolution Mapping of Site Preferences and Lattice Distortions during Lithium Intercalation” has been accepted by Cell Reports: Physical Science. Congratulations to the team!
12/2021: Our co-authored paper “Interstitial Nature of Mn2+ Doping in 2D Perovskites” has been accepted by ACS Nano. Congratulations to the team! You can learn more about it here.
11/2021: Group dinner before Thanksgiving! Thanks to the students who work hard and push the projects forward! We also see off Mohammed Shyikh, 2nd master student graduated from the group. He will join Applied Materials and pursue his dream career in the semiconductor industry. Good Luck with your future endeavor, Mohammed!
11/2021: Our coauthored paper “Scalable Production of Bismuth Porous Nanosheets via Chemical Interface Confinement Reduction for Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide to Liquid Fuel” is accepted for publication on Advanced Functional Materials. You can find out more here. Congratulations to the team!
10/2021: Kyeong Yeon Lee and Yeonju Yu joined the group as new graduate students. Welcome!
10/2021: Dr. Qing Tu is selected to receive the 2021 Haythornthwaite Foundation Research Initiation Award. Thanks to the support from ASME Applied Mechanics Division and the Haythornthwaite Foundation!
07/2021: Our proposal for MRS Fall 2021 symposium “EQ07 – Defects and Strain Potential Enabled Emergent Behavior in Two-Dimensional Materials” in Boston, MA, is funded. Thanks to the support from NSF – Mechanics of Materials & Structures (MOMS) Program. The fund will be used to support graduate students to attend the conference, with priority given to female and underrepresented minority students, to promote student diversity and foster an interdisciplinary community of Mechanics and Materials at MRS. If you happen to work in the field related to Mechanics/Strain-related topics of 2D materials, please considering attending the symposium and apply for the fund support to cover conference attendance costs.
07/2021: First group gathering at Fusion Peru. After a year of pandemic, we were finally able to get together to celebrate Raj’s graduation and Doyun’s first paper. Thanks to you all for your hard work! BTW, the food is great!
06/2021: Our proposal on investigating the fundamental electronic properties of fossil fuel byproducts for green energy harvesting is recommended for funding! Thanks to the support from ACS Petroleum Research Fund!
06/2021: Raj successfully defended his thesis on the frictional properties of 2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites. He will continue his PhD study in MSEN department at TAMU. Congratulations, Raj!
06/2021: Doyun’s first leading-author paper, “In-Plane Mechanical Property of 2D Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites Nanosheets: Structure-Property Relationship” has been accepted by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
06/2021: Our review article “Mechanics-Coupled Stability of Metal Halide Perovskites” has been accepted by Matter and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
05/2021: Our co-authored paper “2D Hybrid Perovskites (CmH2m+1NH3)2(CH3NH3)Pb2Br7 (m = 6−8) with Long Organic Spacers: Structure, Film Fabrication, Stability and Photophysical Properties” has been accepted by Chemistry of Materials, and will be online soon. Congratulations to the team!
10/2020: Our co-authored paper “Ovarian stiffness increases with age in the mammalian ovary and depends on collagen and hyaluronan matrices” has been accepted by Aging Cell, and can be found here. It unveils how aging will affect the mechanical properties of ovary organ and thus the human reproduce capability, and correlates to the tissue composition. Congratulations to the team!
04/2020: Our paper “Exploring the Factors Affecting the Mechanical Properties of 2D Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites” has been accepted by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, check here
03/2020: Our co-authored paper “Alternative Route for Electrochemical Ammonia Synthesis by Reduction of Nitrate on Copper Nanosheets” has been accepted by Applied Materials Today and will soon be online
02/2020: Our co-authored paper “Single-Crystal Polycationic Polymer Obtained by Single-Crystal-to-Single-Crystal Photopolymerization” has been accepted by Journal of the American Chemical Society, check here.
11/2019: Our co-authored paper “Structured Silicon for Revealing Transient and Integrated Signal Transductions in Microbial Systems” has been accepted by Science Advances and will soon be online.
08/2019: Dr. Qing Tu was selected as a recipient for AVS Electronic Materials and Photonics Division (EMPD) Postdoctoral Travel Award. Qing will attend the AVS 66th International Symposium and Exhibit in Oct. 2019 and present his work on mechanical effects on the electronic properties of 2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites.
05/2019: Our new paper “Ethylenediammonium-Based “Hollow” Pb/Sn Perovskites with Ideal Band Gap Yield Solar Cells with Higher Efficiency and Stability” is published on Journal of the American Chemical Society.
04/2019: Dr. Qing Tu is invited to give a talk in SPIE-MRSEC Student Seminar Series, McCormick Graduate Student Colloquium, Northwestern University
04/2019: Our new paper “Two-dimensional copper nanosheets for electrochemical reduction of carbon monoxide to acetate” is published on Nature Catalysis and is picked as the front cover.
03/2019: Dr. Qing Tu is invited to give a talk in the Department of Mechanical Science & Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
02/2019: Our new paper “Mapping Hot Spots at Heterogeneities of Few-Layer Ti3C2 MXene Sheets” is published on ACS Nano.
02/2019: Our new paper “Probing Strain-Induced Band Gap Modulation in 2D Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskites” is published on ACS Energy Letters.