Zhilong ZHANG

Biography

  • Professor Zhilong Zhang received his International Baccalaureate diploma from St Peter’s College Adelaide (2008), his undergraduate degree from the Australian National University (2012) and his PhD from the University of New South Wales (2018). He then joined the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge as a postdoctoral researcher (2018-2022) and obtained an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship in 2019. He joined the SCUT in 2022 and currently leading an independent research group. His current research interests include energy transfer mechanism in nanomaterials, ultrafast spectroscopy, optoelectronic devices (LEDs, solar cells and photodetectors), photon up/down conversion and new concepts of energy conversion. He is the author or co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He is a native Chinese and English speaker, and fluent in Japanese.

Research Interests

  • Professor Zhang’s research focuses on the photo-physics and optoelectronic properties of a range of nanomaterials, including quantum dots, organic molecules, 2D materials, and their hybrids. He is particularly interested in studying the fundamental physics of nanomaterials, as this is key to the performance of applications based on these materials. His group is also actively working on applications such as photon up/down conversion, light-emitting diodes, and energy conversion.

  • Examples of ongoing projects include:

  • 1.Energy transfer mechanisms among quantum dots, organic molecules, lanthanides, etc.

  • 2.Using ultrafast transient spectroscopy and microscopy to reveal exciton dynamics.

  • 3.Photon up/down conversion materials.

  • 4.NIR LEDs.

  • 5.New concepts for energy conversion.

  • All students in his group receive rigorous training in the synthesis of various types of quantum dots, characterization techniques for photo-physical properties (particularly by using ultrafast transient absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy), and the fabrication and characterization of optoelectronic devices.

Awards & Honors

2026

ACS Journal of Physical Chemistry: Future Leaders in Physical Chemistry

2019

EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship

2015

Australian Postgraduate Award

Selected Publications

    1.Yanhong Fan; Jia Luo; Ziqi Wang; Yanchao Zhao; Shuangke Wu; Yuqi Sun; Peng Zhang; Haoyu Song; Xianggui Zhou; Zhiqiang Hu; Jiajie Wu; Yaqi Gu; Lu Qiu; Zhuang Miao; Sanyang Han; Xing Jiang; Victor Gray; Jiajia Zhou; Akshay Rao*; Zhilong Zhang*; Remotely Tuned Triplet Transfer via Ligand Proximity in Quantum Dot – Organic Spectral Converters, ACS Nano, 2026, 20, 12, 9996–10011

    2.Jia Luo, Yanhong Fan, Yanchao Zhao, Jiajie Wu, Yaqi Gu, Haoyu Song, Hua Liang, Shuangke Wu, Zhuang Miao, Lu Qiu, Xing Jiang, Akshay Rao, Zhilong Zhang*; Alloyed Quantum Dots with Tuned Exciton Wave Function Delocalization for Enhanced Energy Transfer, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2026, 17(9): 2591-2600

    3.Linyuan Lian; Daming Xiong; Yanhong Fan; Tao Liang; Ming Ai; Jibin Zhang; Mochen Jia; Ying Liu; Zhuangzhuang Ma; Xu Chen; Yanbing Han; Yongtao Tian; Xinjian Li; Zhilong Zhang*; Chongxin Shan; Zhifeng Shi*; Water‐Assisted Rapid Evaporation Synthesis of Transparent and Multicolor Luminescent Lanthanide‐Based Metal Halide Glasses for High‐Resolution X‐Ray Imaging, Advanced Functional Materials, 2025, e23727-e23727

    4.Zhilong Zhang, Jooyoung Sung*, Daniel Toolan, Sanyang Han, Raj Pandya, Michael Weir, James Xiao, Simon Dowland, Mengxia Liu, Anthony J. Ryan, Richard A. L. Jones, Shujuan Huang and Akshay Rao*. Ultrafast Exciton Transport at Early Times in Quantum Dot Solids. Nature Materials, 2022, 21, 533–539

    5.Zihan Chen, Yaohong Zhang, Zhi Li Teh, Jianfeng Yang, Lin Yuan, Gavin J. Conibeer, Robert J.Patterson, Qing Shen, Shujuan Huang*, Zhilong Zhang*. Passivating Quantum Dot Carrier Transport Layer with Metal Salts. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2021, 13, 24, 28679–28688.

    6.Mengxia Liu, Sachin Dev Verma, Zhilong Zhang, Jooyoung Sung*, and Akshay Rao*. Nonequilibrium Carrier Transport in Quantum Dot Heterostructures. Nano Letters, 2021, 21, 21, 8945–8951

    7.Linjie Dai, Zeyu Deng, Florian Auras, Heather Goodwin, Zhilong Zhang, John Walmsley, Paul Bristowe, Felix Deschler, Neil Greenham*. Slow Carrier Relaxation in Tin-based Perovskite Nanocrystals. Nature Photonics, 2021, 15, 696–702

    8.Zhilong Zhang, Zihan Chen, Lin Yuan, Weijian Chen, Jianfeng Yang, Xiaoming Wen, Jianbing Zhang, Long Hu, John A. Stride, Gavin J. Conibeer, Robert J. Patterson, and Shujuan Huang*. A New Passivation Route Leading to over 8% Efficient PbSe Quantum Dot Solar Cells via Direct Ion Exchange with Perovskite Nanocrystals. Advanced Materials, 2017, 29, 1703214

    9.Zhilong Zhang, Zihan Chen, Jianbing Zhang, Weijian Chen, Jianfeng Yang, Xiaoming Wen, Bo Wang, Naoya Kobamoto, Lin Yuan, John A. Stride, Gavin J. Conibeer, Robert J. Patterson and Shujuan Huang*. Significant Improvement in the Performance of PbSe Quantum Dot Solar Cell by Introducing a CsPbBr3 Perovskite Colloidal Nanocrystal Back Layer. Advanced Energy Materials, 2017, 7, 1601773

    10.Zihan Chen#, Zhilong Zhang#, Jianfeng Yang, Weijian Chen, Zhi Li Teh, Dian Wang, Lin Yuan, Jianbing Zhang, John A. Stride, Gavin J. Conibeer, Robert J. Patterson* and Shujuan Huang*. Improving Carrier Extraction In a PbSe Quantum Dot Solar Cell by Introducing a Solution-Processed Antimony-Doped SnO2 Buffer Layer. The Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2018, 6, 9861-9866

Teaching

Undergraduate courses:

Renewable Energy Technologies

Experiments in Polymer Physics

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