Group News

  • June 2022, Dr. Xu attends the 82nd Physical Electronics Conference at Loyola University Chicago, and gives a keynote presentation.

  • May 2022, Qing Xie has been awarded CAS Dean's Research Fellowship for Fall 2022 semester.

  • April 2022, We welcome Amirhossein Zahmatkeshsaredorahi to join our research group as graduate students. He obtained his M.S. in material sciences and engineering at Sharif University of Technology.

  • January 2022, Qing Xie’s paper on dual-color peak force infrared microscopy is published in Analytical Chemistry.

  • September 2021, Devon’s work on FET-switched KPFM with integration of photo-induced force microscopy is featured as cover art by Small .

  • July 2021, Devon has successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Devon Jakob! Dr. Jakob will start his postdoc research at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland.

  • May 2021, Dr. Xu is selected as Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.

  • April 2021, Haomin Wang’s paper on two-dimensional peak force infrared microscopy is published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. It is a photothermal-based pump/probe microscopy with spatial resolution much better than the optical diffraction limit.

  • April 2021, Dr. Xu receives the Class of ’61 Professorship from Lehigh University.

  • February 2021, Haomin’s paper on liquid phase peak force infrared microscopy on soft matters is published in Analytical Chemistry. This method allows label-free super-resolution chemical imaging in the aqueous phase.

  • January 2021, Haomin’s paper on total internal reflection peak force infrared microscopy is published in Analytical Chemistry. This work also demonstrates the total internal reflection geometry for photo-induced force microscopy.

  • October 2020, Dr. Xu has been promoted to associate professor.

  • June 2020, Devon Jakob’s paper on Peak Force Infrared – Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy is published in Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. It achieves the correlative imaging of nano infrared and surface potential. This work together with the work on pulsed force Kelvin probe force microscopy (PF-KPFM) on ACS Nano are featured by Eureka Alert , AZoNano , PHYS.org, Semiconductor Engineering, and Advances in Engineering.

  • May 2020, Le Wang receives the Elizabeth V. Stout Dissertation Award for her Ph.D. dissertation “Nanoscale Infrared Microscopy through an Atomic Force Microscope.”

  • April 2020, Devon Jakob’s paper on pulsed force Kelvin probe force microscopy (PF-KPFM) is published in ACS Nano. It rejuvenates the Kelvin probe force microscopy by providing < 10 nm spatial resolution under ambient conditions on a wide variety of samples.

  • March 2020, Our work on multipulse peak force infrared microscopy is featured as a cover art in Advanced Optical Materials.

  • February 2020, Dr. Xu is named a Sloan Research Fellow, by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

  • December 2019, Haomin Wang’s paper on three-dimensional analysis of near-field response by PF-SNOM is published in Nanoscale.

  • November 2019, Dr. Xu presented a keynote presentation at the TERS-7 conference.

  • November 2019, Le Wang’s paper on multipulse peak force infrared microscopy is published in Advanced Optical Materials.

  • November 2019, Congratulations on Haoluo Fu and Yuming Tian on the presentation of the Chem VR project being selected as the top-rated presentation among all Mountaintop projects! Good work!

  • October 2019, Dr. Xu presented an invited talk at the SciX2019 Conference at Palm Springs, CA, on peak force infrared microscopy.

  • September 2019, Le Wang’s paper on generalized excitation configuration of photo-induced force microscopy is published in Analytical Chemistry.

  • August 2019, Dr. Xu attended the ACS Fall Meeting in San Diego, CA, giving presentations on Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy and Nanoscale infrared microscopy.

  • July 2019, Le Wang successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation. She is the first Ph.D. graduate of the Xu group. Congratulations! She has set a high standard for future Ph.D. students in our group.

  • June 2019, Dr. Xu attended the ACS Northeast Regional Meeting (NERM) 2019 to give an invited talk about peak force infrared microscopy.

  • June 2019, Devon Jakob’s paper on peak force infrared microscopy characterization of oil shale rock is published in Analytical Chemistry.

  • April 2019, Devon Jakob receives the Roy R. Honor fellowship from Lehigh University. He will carry out research on characterization methods for inorganic materials.

  • February 2019. Our group received funding from the National Science Foundation, CAREER program on developing new microscopy techniques. Exciting research is ahead!

  • August 27, 2018. Dr. Xu attended the NFO-15 conference in Troyes, France, to present the latest work on PF-SNOM and the ultra-broadband plasma source for s-SNOM.

  • August 23, 2018. Dr. Xu attended the SPMonSPM2018 conference in Leuven, Belgium to present the latest research on PFIR microscopy.

  • August 19, 2018. Dr. Xu gave an invited talk at the ACS Fall Meeting in Boston. He was featured by C&EN news as a “must-see” presenter. Group members Le Wang, Haomin Wang, and Devon Jakob all gave oral presentations at the ACS Meeting.

  • August 12-14, 2018. Dr. Xu attended the Beckman Symposium in Irvine, CA.

  • June 2018. Dr. Xu served as a judge for a scholarship award at the ScienceBuzz STEM Symposium 2018 at Springhouse middle school in Allentown, PA.

  • June 2018. Le Wang, Haomin Wang, and Devon Jakob attended the 2018 Mid Atlantic Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society and presented posters on their latest research.

  • May 2018. Dr. Xu is selected as one of the Beckman Young Investigators of 2018 by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.

  • May 2018, our work on peak force scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy is published in Nature Communications and is reported on ScienceDaily.com, AZONano, and Nanowerk.

  • May 2018, Dr. Xu has presented a seminar at the University of Delaware on peak force infrared microscopy and peak force scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy.

  • April 2018, Haomin Wang has been awarded the Roy R. Honor fellowship from Lehigh University. Devon Jakob has been awarded College of Arts and Sciences Summer research fellowship.

  • February 2018, Dr. Xu has presented our latest work on PFIR microscopy at the PittCon2018 conference in Orlando.

  • October 2017, Dr. Xu attended the FACSS-SciX2018 Conference at Reno, NV and gave an invited talk on peak force infrared microscopy and its application on photovoltaics.

  • August 2017, Our work on Peak force infrared microscopy has been highlighted on Sciencedaily.com, Phys.org, and AzoNano.

  • July 2017, Dr. Xu and our work on aerosol characterization are featured in the ChemComm 2017 Emerging Investigator Issue.

  • May 2017, Le Wang has been granted the 2017-2018 departmental fellowship.

  • July 2016, Le Wang has been awarded the Zurich Instruments Student Travel grant to attend CLEO 2017 conference.

  • Dec. 2014, Xu Lab starts operation at Lehigh University, located in Bethlehem, PA.