Yang Song Assistant Professor Ph.D., Iowa Sate University PDF, Harvard University Office: Chemistry 066 Phone (Office): 519 661-2111 ext. 86310
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Physical and Materials Chemistry, Chemical Physics, Chemistry under Extreme Conditions, Development and Application of Spectroscopy and Synchrotron Radiation
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Awards:
• Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award
• Alpha Chi Sigma Award for Excellent Research
• Henry Gilman Fellowship
• SIGMA XI
• Wall Fellowship
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Current Research Programs:
Under extreme conditions, such as high pressures, molecular solids often exhibit novel structures and thus extraordinary properties, which are otherwise inaccessible at ambient conditions. High pressure significantly enhances intermolecular interactions and thus weaken chemical bonds. As a result, the optimization of internal energy associated with changes in molecular geometry and density often lead to new phenomena beyond our understanding. We use the diamond anvil cells to achieve static high pressures, which are also capable of a large temperature range from a few to several thousand kelvins. In particular, we are interested in wide a range of chemistry and materials research under high pressures, including pressure-induced chemical reactions, formation and characterization of new high-pressure compounds, development of novel functional materials, and high-pressure chemical kinetics.
Under the funding support from Western and Canadian fereral government (NSERC and CFI), we have established an ultrasensitive state-of-the-art Raman microspectroscopy system, and will be implementing a highly versatile customized FTIR microspectroscopy system. These essential vibrational probes provide extremely valuable information for the characterization of high pressure structures in situ. The high-brilliance 2nd and 3rd synchrotron radiation facilities provide tremendous advantages for researchers to study the structures and properties of high pressure materials with unparalleled efficiency. The techniques in synchrotron based far-Infrared microspectroscopy, x-ray diffraction and x-ray spectroscopy are exemplary successes which bring continuing exciting discoveries in the high pressure materials research community.. Students in our group will obtain hand-on training in this frontier area by using the world class research facilities both in local labs and at synchrotron beamlines in US national labs as well as Canadian Light Source.
Selected Publications:
Z. Dong and Y. Song, “Abnormal pressure-induced structural transformations of gallium nitride nanowires”, Appl. Phys. Lett., 96, 151903 (2010).
Z. Dong and Y. Song, “Transformations of cold-compressed multi-walled boron nitride nanotubes probed by infrared spectroscopy”, J. Phys. Chem. C, 114, 1782 (2010).
C. Murli and Y. Song, “Pressure induced transformations in diborane: a Raman spectroscopic study”, J. Phys. Chem. B, 113, 13509 (2009).
Z. Dong and Y. Song, “Pressure-induced Morphology-dependent Phase Transformations of Nanostructured Tin Dioxide”, Chem. Phys. Lett., 480, 90 (2009).
D. Shakhvorostov, R.A. Nistor, L. Krusin-Elbaum, G. J. Martyna, D. M. Newns, B. G. Elmegreen, X. Liu, Z. E. Hughes, S. Paul, C. Cabral, S. Raoux, D. B. Shrekenhamer, D. N. Basov, Y. Song, and M.H. Muser, “Evidence for electronic gap-driven metal-semiconductor transition in phase-change materials”, PNAS, 106, 10907 (2009).
