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People Scott X. Mao

William Kepler Whiteford Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science


Phone: 412-624-9602
Fax: 412-624-4846
Office: BENDM 642

Education

PhD, Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Tohuku University, 1988

Professional Interests

Scott X. Mao joined the department in January 1999 after 9 1/2 years of teaching and research at the University of Calgary (UC) as a faculty. He was a postdoctoral research associate at the Massachuset Institute of Technology (MIT) before the academic appointment at UC. He was also a visiting associate professor at Harvard University in 1995-1996.

Mao is a member of ASME, MRS, and TMS and serves as chair of the mechanical behavior committee in TMS. He was awarded several research and teaching excellence awards during his service at the University of Calgary. Dr. Mao was a Leighton E. & Mary N. Orr Faculty Fellow during 1999–2000. Recently, he received the 2006 Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award at the Univerisity of Pittsburgh.

Research Interests

Scott X. Mao's research interests are in the areas of nanomechanical behavior of materials, materials science, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microfabrication; and piezoelectric/ferroelectric nanowires for sensor and nano-device applications, atomic force microscope and nanomechanics.

For more details, visit his personal Web site.

Selected Recent Publications

Z. Shan, E.A. Stach, J.Wiezorek, J.A. Knapp, D.M. Follstaedt, and S.X. Mao “Grain Boundary Mediated Plasticity in Nanocrystalline Nickel”, Science Vol.305, p.654-657 (2004).

Z. Shan and S.X. Mao, “Direct evidence of a deformation mechanism crossover in nanocrystalline nickel”, Advanced Engineering Materials , No.7 p603, 2005 (invited).

F. Yang, C.B. Jiang, W. Du, Z. Zhang, S. Li and S.X. Mao, “Nanomechanical Characterization of ZnS nanobelts”, Nanotechnology, (2005), No.16, p1-5.

Zheng Chen, N. Wu, Z. Shan, M. Zhao, M. Chyu and S. X. Mao, “Effect of N2 flow rate on morphology and structure of ZnO nanocrystals synthesized via vapor deposition”, Scripta Materialia, Vol.52, (2005), p63-67.

N. Wu, Z. Chen, J. Xu, M. Chyu and Scott X. Mao, “ Impedance-metric Pt/YSZ/Au-Ga2O3 sensor for CO detection at high temperature”, Sensors and Actuators B 110 (2005) 48-53.

M. Zhao, Z. L. Wang, S. X. Mao, “Piezoelectric characterization of individual zinc oxide nanobelt probed by piezoelectric force microscope”, Nano Letters, Vol.4, pp587-590 (2004).

Zheng Chen, Zhiwei Shan, M. S. Cao , Lu Lei, Scott X. Mao “Zinc Oxide Nanotetrapods”. Nanotechnology. 15 (2004), p365

Z. Chen,  N. Wu and S X. Mao, “Hot Corrosion Mechanism of Composite Alumina/Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Coating in Molten Sulfate-Vanadate Salt”, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 457, p.301-306 (2004).

Z. Chen, Z. Shan, N. Q. Wu, V. K. Sikka, M. Hua and Scott X. Mao, “Fine Carbides Strengthened 3Cr-3WVTa Bainite Steels”, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, Vol. 35A, (2004), 1281.

N. Wu,  Kazuhiro Ogawa,  M. Chyu and X. Mao, Failure detection of thermal barrier coatings using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, Solid Thin Film 457(2) (2004), 299.

B. M. Ennis, A. Madan, S.A. Barnett, W. Slaughter and S.X. Mao, “Super hardening and deformability in epitaxially grown W/NbN nanolayers under shallow and deep nanoindentations.”, J. Applied Physics Vol.94, No.11 (2003), pp1-7.

S. X. Mao, Minhua Zhao, Zhong Lin Wang, “Nanoscale mechanical behavior of individual semiconducting nanobelts”, Applied Physics Letters, 83, 993-995, (2003).

M. Zhao, W. Slaughter, M. Li and S.X. Mao, “Material-Length-Scale-Controlled Nanoindentation Size Effects due to Strain-Gradient Plasticity”, Acta Materialia , Vol.51, pp4461-4469, (2003).

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Mao is William Kepler Whiteford Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Pittsburgh. He has received many research and teaching awards in last 15 years including 2006 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award (Senior Scholar category), and has published more than one hundred papers including 80 journal and 50 conference publications in the journals of Science, J. Mechanic & Physics of Solids, Applied Physics Letter, Acta Materialia and Philosophical Magazine. He was chair of mechanical behavior of materials committee in TMS/ASM and has organized many international symposiums in his research field. One of his Ph.D students (Zhiwei Shan) received 2005 MRS Graduate Research Silver Medal in Materials Research Society (MRS). Special reports by International, DOE & Pitt News Mediums have reported the recent discovery on nano-grains rotation during mechanical deformation. The book he co-authored on “Nanowires and Nanobelts- Materials, Properties and Devices” published by Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publisher has been popular in nanotechnology area. The Atomic force microscope (AFM) / electric force microscope (EFM) and magnetic force microscope (MFM) with nanoindentation system have been developed in his nanomechanics laboratory.

faculty

The Department of Mechanical Engineering has 16 full time, 6 adjunct, and 5 emeritus faculty members