Biography

Ye grew up in Fuyang, a city in Anhui province, P. R. China. Good performances (with luck) in a few "important" exams in high school gave him a chance to enter Tsinghua University, one of the most prestigious universities in China. With a B. E. in Materials Science and Engineering (MS&E) from Tsinghua University, in 2002 he moved to Canada for graduate study. He got a M.S. in MS&E from McMaster University in 2004, and then he moved to U.S. Now he's a Ph.D. student and a research assistant in Voyles Research Group in UW-Madison.

(for more details, refer to Ye's CV)

Research

Ye’s present research has been primarily focusing on TEM characterization of MgB2 superconductor. Ye has used various TEM-based techniques, such as BF, DF, SAD, STEM, XEDS and EELS, to characterize SiC-doped MgB2 tapes prepared by A. Matsumoto.  By investigating MgB2 samples prepared at different temperatures with different SiC doping level, the effects of SiC addition and heating temperature on the microstructure of the tapes have been analyzed, and the results have been presented in the presentation “Nanoscale Structure and Chemistry in SiC-Doped MgB2 Tapes” on Spring Materials Research Society (MRS) 2006.

Ye also did HRTEM observation on hybrid physical-chemical vapor deposited (HPCVD) epitaxial thin films.  Cross-sectional and plane-view TEM samples have been prepared for both pure and C-doped films, and the microstructure inside the MgB2 films and at the interfaces has been imaged. The next step will be to explore the C distribution in the doped MgB2 film. Ye also did TEM observation and defects characterization on high-purity bulk MgB2 and C-doped bulk MgB2 prepared by WC ball-milling and HIP.

Publications

“Evaluation of connectivity, flux pinning and upper critical field contributions to the critical current density of bulk MgB2” A. Matsumoto, H. Kumakura, and H. Kitaguchi, B. J. Senkowicz, M. C. Jewell, E. E. Hellstrom, Y. Zhu, P. M. Voyles, and D.C. Larbalestier, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 132508 (2006).

“Single atomic layer detection of Ca and defect characterization of Bi-2212 with EELS in HA-ADF STEM” Ye Zhu, Marek Niewczas, Martin Couillard, Gianluigi A. Botton, Ultramicroscopy 106, 1076 (2006).