On January 6, 2017, Prof. Rodney S. Ruoff, the director of the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM) and Distinguished Professor of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has been invited to Xiamen University(XMU) to make Nanqiang Lecture with the title of “New Carbon Materials” for faculties and students from Xiamen University. This lecture has attracted more than 300 people to attend and has been presided by Prof. Nanfeng Zheng from College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of XMU. The academician Prof. Shigang Sun from College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of XMU attended this lecture and awarded the Memorial Plaque of Nanqiang Lecture to Prof. Ruoff. As one of the members of International Advisory Board (IAB) of Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials(iChEM), Prof. Ruoff has actively participated the annual meetings of iChEM and provided precious suggestions and advices to iChEM for its sustainable development.

There are various forms for allotrope of carbon, such as diamond, graphite, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene, etc.. Prof. Ruoff has described the latest research progresses in diamond films and graphene during the one and half hour lecture. Prof. Ruoff first introduced the development history of carbon materials and the discovery of graphene. The preparation of large size diamond films under moderate conditions has been a big challenge in the field of carbon materials research. Prof. Ruoff then shared the idea and experimental efforts to prepare diamond films from chloroform, a polymer precursor containing only sp3 hybrid carbon atoms. In early 2009, Prof. Ruoff’s group has reported the growth of high quality graphene on copper foil and transfer method thereof. In this lecture, Prof. Ruoff introduced in the (111) crystal plane bare single crystal copper (copper nickel alloy) the latest research results of the growth of large area and high quality graphene foil, and made use of metal carbon will possibility foil graphene films into diamond films. Based on the excellent optical, electrical and thermal properties of graphene, Prof. Ruoff believes that graphene will be widely used in the fields of energy, film, composite materials, biomedicine, sensors and electronic devices. Not only that, the excellent performance of graphene thin two-dimensional shape has inspired the scientific community to explore the enthusiasm of other two-dimensional materials.

During the lecture, Prof. Ruoff stressed the importance of several material characterization technology and interdisciplinary cooperation, also shared his discussion experience with faculties from XMU College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and iChEM center, expecting to collaborate in the future with XMU and iChEM center in Raman spectroscopy, surface and interface chemistry, energy materials etc., to carry out high level international collaboration. At the end, Prof. Ruoff answered all the questions raised by teachers and students detailed and patiently.

Rodney S. Ruoff, UNIST Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, is director of the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM), an IBS Center located at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) campus. Prior to joining UNIST he was the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair Professor at the University of Texas at Austin from September, 2007. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1988, and he was a Fulbright Fellow in 1988-89 at the Max Planck Institute für Strömungsforschung in Göttingen, Germany. He was at Northwestern University from January 2000 to August 2007, where he was the John Evans Professor of Nanoengineering and director of NU’s Biologically Inspired Materials Institute. He has co-authored about 450 peer-reviewed publications related to chemistry, physics, materials science, mechanics, and biomedical science, and is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is the recipient of the 2014 Turnbull Prize from the MRS and the SGL Skakel Award from the American Carbon Society in 2016. For further background on some of his research see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_S._Ruoff  .