Prof. Zhen Tong (童貞), Assistant Professor in the School of Advanced Energy at Sun Yat-Sen University, visited IAPME on 14 November 2025. During his visit, he delivered an insightful presentation titled “Glassy Thermal Transport in Crystal Solids”. The seminar was hosted by Prof. Yongqing Cai, who extended the invitation to Prof. Tong.
Prof. Zhen Tong received his bachelor’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2014 and his Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2019. He has been a visiting scholar at Purdue University in the United States and a Humboldt Research Fellow in Germany. His research focuses on the fundamental mechanisms of energy carriers including phonons, electrons, photons, and ions in micro/nano-scale energy transport, thermoelectrics, radiative cooling, solid-state battery, and solar-thermal storage, etc.
During his talk, Prof. Tong shared the latest progress on the glass-like transport leads to ultra-low and weakly temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. The seminar covered the mechanism bridges theory–experiment gaps and guides the design of high-performance thermoelectrics and solid-state electrolytes.
Through this visit, Prof. Tong expressed great interests in potential collaborations on thermal conduction and theoretical studies with staffs from IAPME. Potential collaborative works on phonon anharmonicity are also promised.
