Mao-Hua Zhang

Mao-Hua Zhang is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, and completed his Ph.D. at the Department of Materials and Geosciences, Technical University of Darmstadt in May 2022. His dissertation focused on the development of new lead-free antiferroelectric materials with reversible field-induced phase transitions and the exploration of the underlying mechanisms and potential applications. He succeeded in making the irreversible antiferroelectric−ferroelectric phase transition in NaNbO₃-based materials reversible.

Mao-Hua received his Ph.D. in Natural Sciences with distinction and was the recipient of the 2023 award for Outstanding Scientific Achievements, TU Darmstadt and a recipient of the Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Research, TU Darmstadt. He was awarded excellent master graduate and outstanding master’s thesis at Tsinghua University. He received the 2022 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad and was a selected young scientist to attend the 71st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. His research interests include the processing and structure-property relationship of lead-free piezoceramics and antiferroelectric perovskite oxides. He is (co-)author of more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in leading materials, chemistry, and physics journals.

Mao-Hua enjoys being involved in his research communities, especially the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). His presentation on the design of new antiferroelectric materials was awarded the Best Student Oral Presentation Award (3/114) at the 2021 Conference on Electronics Materials and Applications.

Currently working at Penn State University in a new research area, phase-field simulation, Mao-Hua is taking on new challenges to bring together materials design, characterization, and modelling to better understand materials.