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Hong Kong: An R&D Hub in Asia for Materials Science and Engineering

2014; Volume: 26; Issue: 31 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/adma.201402935

1521-4095

Zijian Zheng, Jianfang Wang, Vivian Wing‐Wah Yam, Wenjun Zhang, Ben Zhong Tang, Man Shing Wong,

Metallurgical and Alloy Processes

Hong Kong is not only famed as a global financial center, but is also distinguished as an outstanding R&D hub for nurturing talent in science, technology, and innovation over the past twenty years. In particular, being a Special Administrative Region of China, Hong Kong possesses unique advantages in world-class higher education and academic research in materials science and engineering, networking closely with leading institutions and companies on the mainland and in many other countries. In view of this great opportunity, the Hong Kong Government established three R&D centers in 2006, including the Nano and Advanced Materials Institute Limited (NAMI), the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), and the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), which cater for market-driven development and technology transfer in advanced materials and nanotechnology. Meanwhile, a 22-hectare Hong Kong Science Park was set up to provide a platform for commercialization of these innovative technologies. The rapid growth and great achievements in materials science research and innovation in Hong Kong are largely attributed to the strong reputation and academic excellence of Hong Kong's universities. There are six universities that are devoting a large amount of effort to the field of materials science and engineering, including The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), The University of Hong Kong (HKU), the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). While each university excels in their own specialized areas, collaboration among the 6 has fostered them into an area of excellence. At the end of this Editorial, a brief introduction of the six universities and their research focuses in this field will be given. In this Advanced Materials Hong Kong Special Issue, we are deeply honored to share some representative research efforts from our six leading universities, and to highlight the recent progress in the field of materials science and engineering in Hong Kong. Nineteen Reviews and Research News are selected in this special issue with topics spanning from materials growth theory, optoelectronics, graphene, and carbon nanotubes, to sensors/actuators, flexible electronics, medicines, and smart textiles. More importantly, it is our sincere hope that this special issue can widen and deepen readers' understanding of Hong Kong's advanced materials research, and trigger their interest to work with scientists in Hong Kong in the near future. Finally, we would also like to express our grateful thanks to all the editors at Advanced Materials for their continuous support to this special issue. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has continued to make a difference and shine in the field of materials research over the past twenty years. Excelling in this particular field, with major research focuses on smart materials, polymers, composites, textiles, thin films, and coatings, PolyU has inspired new generations of expertise and dedicated much effort to collaborating closely with universities and industries. The Department of Applied Physics (AP) and the Institute of Textiles and Clothing (ITC), both under the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles at PolyU, have contributed significantly to the recently fast-progressing field of materials research. In 1992, the Material Research Centre (MRC) was founded under AP in a bid to provide world-class research facilities for materials synthesis, characterization, and processing, as well as to promote collaboration between multidisciplinary materials researchers among faculties and departments. Another renowned facility for materials research is the Centre for Smart Materials (CSM), which aims to conduct advanced materials research with a special focus on piezoelectric and pyroelectric materials for sensory and mechatronic applications. Recently, with new directions in nanotechnology, PolyU has actively engaged in advanced materials research on nanoscale ferroelectric and magnetoelectric materials, graphene synthesis, and other nanostructured systems. Other than smart materials, novel textiles and fibrous materials have become the focus of key materials research at PolyU. The Nanotechnology Centre for Functional and Intelligent Textile and Apparel founded by ITC is one of the two nanotechnology centres sponsored by the Hong Kong Government, and it aims to facilitate and support advanced textile research on new fibrous nanomaterials. Among our research, photonic fibers, shape-memory polymers, biofunctional textiles, graphene, carbon nanotubes, and advanced functional finishing technologies for textile fibers are the recent highlights. As the only university in Hong Kong that provides textile education, PolyU stands at the cutting edge of developing advanced fibrous materials and applications in wearable electronics and devices, technical textiles, and functional and intelligent garments for a wide variety of disciplines, such as medicine, rehabilitation, sports, and electronics. The materials research in CUHK is very diverse, with, in total, more than twenty groups working intensively on materials-related research, including physics, chemistry, electronic engineering, and mechanical and automation engineering. The former two are housed in the Faculty of Science, and the latter two belong to the Faculty of Engineering. In terms of functions, studied materials cover a wide range, including biomedical, photovoltaic, lithium-ion battery, plasmonic, catalytic, photocatalytic, environmental, electronic, photonic, thermoelectric, and mechanical materials. In terms of chemical composition, the studied materials include metals, metal alloys, transition metal oxides, small organic molecules, conjugated polymers, hydrogel, proteins, semiconductors, and graphene. Their sizes range from molecular to the nanometer-scale, to microscopic and up to macroscopic scales. For photovoltaics, almost all of the major types of solar cells are being actively researched, including copper–indium–gallium–selenide thin-film solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, polymer solar cells, and perovskite solar cells. There have been active collaborations among the materials research groups at CUHK, and significant achievements have been made, as indicated by our on-going Theme-based Research Scheme on smart solar-energy harvesting, storage, and utilization. CUHK does not have a separate department for materials science or engineering. There is a materials science and engineering program which is associated with the Department of Physics. The physics department has provided continuous and strong support to this program over the years in the acquisition of major materials characterization equipment. Much can be done to further strengthen materials research at CUHK. As the oldest university and one of the leading research institutions in Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has a strong and active programme in molecular functional materials research, especially for various photonic, electronic, optoelectronic, sensory, energy, and biomedical applications. In particular, The University of Hong Kong has exceptionally strong teams working in the area of advanced materials research and has proven expertise and excellent track records in the design and synthesis of organic and metal–organic functional materials. Researchers at HKU have long-standing interest and capability in characterization in the areas of photochemistry, photophysics, and theoretical studies, as well as strong interest in study of the application of new materials with functional properties and novel device architectures. Complementary to the creativity and strength of the synthetic chemists, HKU has synergistic expertise in ultrafast spectroscopy, physical characterization and measurements, computational and theoretical studies, catalysis, device physics, and device engineering. These, together with the coordination of research activities related to research under the University's Strategic Research Theme (SRT) on New Materials, as well as the Areas of Excellence (AoE) Programme on Institute of Molecular Functional Materials and the Theme-Based Research Scheme (TBRS) Project on Challenges in Organic Photovoltaics and Light Emitting Diodes coordinated by HKU, will place HKU in a position well set to meet the challenges for the development of advanced materials research. Excelling together through interdisciplinary research has long been a goal of HKU. Particularly, development of new materials with functional properties has been identified as one of the strategic research themes (SRTs) at HKU. In addition, interdisciplinary research through interaction with other SRTs and the Faculty of Medicine, with state-of-the-art facilities and expertise in molecular biology and clinical research, has facilitated advanced materials research in the area of nanomedicine and biomedical diagnostics. The City University of Hong Kong (CityU) was founded in 1984 and since then has achieved phenomenal growth. Currently, the university has more than 20 000 students enrolled in over 130 programmes at the associate degree, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels. CityU performs strong research and has particular strength in materials science and engineering. Within the university, research in materials is being carried out mainly at the Department of Physics and Materials Science, as well as at a number of other departments and research centers such as the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Biology and Chemistry. The Department of Physics and Materials Science, as the only materials science department in Hong Kong, was established in 1993 and currently has about 30 academic staff, 80 research students, and 110 research and technical staff. Material-related research directions within the university cover a wide range of functional and structural materials, including, but not limited to, metallic materials, ceramics, polymers, and thin films, and their applications in energy, electronics, photonics, nuclear engineering, biology, and medicine. The materials research has been actively developed in recent years and a high number of new academic staff has been recruited. With the joining of this new main force and the encouragement of the university on collaboration among faculties, many multidisciplinary studies working at the interface of different fields are emerging. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), one of the most international and dynamic universities in Hong Kong, was officially opened in 1991 on the site of Clear Water Bay, a beautiful bay on the Kowloon Peninsula. HKUST has established itself as an intellectual powerhouse, energizing the community-s transformation into a knowledge-based society, and securing a place on the academic world map in record-breaking time. As an innovator in research and teaching, HKUST is the only science and technology research university in Hong Kong, and the only one to offer an all-PhD faculty. Materials research at HKUST started at the very beginning of its establishment, and has filtered into almost every branch of disciplines in the area of science and technology. Many of its departments, institutes, and facilities such as the HKUST Fok Ying Tung Graduate School, the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Physics, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the Advanced Engineering Materials Facility, the Centre for Display Research, the HKUST Jockey Institute for Advanced Study, the Institute of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, the William Mong Institute of Nano Science and Technology, the HKUST Shenzhen Institute, and the State Key Laboratory on Advanced Displays and Optoelectronics Technologies in the university, are greatly involved in fundamental research related to materials. It is worth mentioning that there are at least 4 facilities or research centers in the HKUST Fok Ying Tung Graduate School that are working closely on advanced materials, such as advanced composite materials, biomaterials, engineering materials, and functional polymers. HKUST houses a large variety of state-of-the-art equipment and instruments, which are always ready to serve materials-related research. Notably, a central facility named the Materials Characterization and Preparation Facility (MCPF) is intensively serving academic researchers and postgraduate students in the schools of science and engineering for the preparation, characterization, and analysis of various advanced materials. With the establishment of the Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), advanced material research has become one of the focused interdisciplinary research areas at the Faculty of Science at the Hong Kong Baptist University. This research consists of synthesis and development of new materials, as well as in-depth investigations of their optical and electrical properties, which allows new device fabrication and potential applications in optoelectronics, and the biomedical and environmental areas. Currently, the main research at the institute focuses on organic electronics and photonics and their applications in organic light-emitting diodes, organic photovoltaics for solar cells and photodetectors, organic thin-film transistors, organic lasers, and sensors. Dr. Zijian Zheng is currently Associate Professor at the Institute of Textile and Clothing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests are surface science, self-assembly, nanolithography, polymer science, and bendable/stretchable/wearable/graphene materials and electronic devices. He received his B.Eng. from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2003, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Cambridge in 2007. After doing a postdoctoral study at Northwestern University, Dr. Zheng joined PolyU as Assistant Professor in 2009 and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor via a fast track. He serves as Coordinating Guest Editor for this Hong Kong Special Issue. Jianfang Wang is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He obtained his bachelor's degree in inorganic chemistry and software design from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1993, his master's degree in inorganic chemistry from Peking University in 1996, and his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 2002. He did postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara from February 2002 to July 2005. His current research interests focus on metal nanocrystals, metal oxide nanostructures, nanoplasmonics, and catalysis. Vivian Wing-Wah Yam obtained her B.Sc.(hons) degree with first class honours and her Ph.D. both from The University of Hong Kong, and is currently Professor of Chemistry and Energy and Chair Professor there. She was elected to be a Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001, a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2012, and a Fellow of the TWAS in 2006. Her research interests include inorganic and organometallic chemistry, photophysics and photochemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and metal-based molecular functional materials for luminescence sensing, optoelectronics, optical memory and solar-energy conversion. Wenjun Zhang obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1994 from Lanzhou University. He was a postdoc at the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (1995 to 1997) and at the City University of Hong Kong (1997 to 1998). From 1998 to 2000, he worked as a Science and Technology Agency Fellow at the National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials. He joined CityU in 2000 again as a Senior Research Fellow. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Physics and Materials Science and also a core member of the Centre of Super-Diamond and Advanced Films (COSDAF). His research focuses on thin films, semiconducting nanomaterials, surface science and modification, and ions/materials interactions. Ben Zhong Tang received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from SCUT and Kyoto University in 1982 and 1988, respectively. He conducted his postdoctoral work at the University of Toronto and worked as a senior scientist in Neos Co., Ltd. in 1989–1994. He joined HKUST in 1994 and was promoted to Chair Professor in 2008. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009. His research interests include: i) development of luminogenic materials with aggregation-induced emission characteristics, ii) exploration of their high-tech applications in optoelectronic devices and sensory systems, and iii) development of advanced materials based on new (macro)molecules constructed from triple-bond building blocks. Ricky M. S. Wong is the Head and Professor of the Chemistry Department at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He received his Ph.D. degree from The University of Texas, Austin, USA in 1992. He was a Marion-Merrell-Dow/Université Louis Pasteur Postdoctoral Research Fellow. After postdoctoral research at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland, he joined the Research School of Physical Sciences & Engineering, Australian National University as a research fellow and then moved to Hong Kong Baptist University in 1998 as an assistant professor. His research interests are in the areas of functional molecular materials and supramolecular chemistry and organic synthesis.