Group News

2026

[2026.02] Our team MateFin won 1st place (tie) in the Web Agent track of the UC Berkeley AgentX-AgentBeats Phase 1 competition, among 1,300+ participating teams. This is an important international recognition of our work on robust web-agent design, and it validates our direction in building practical, reliable AI agents for real-world tasks. Official announcement.

AgentX-AgentBeats RDI Spotlight AgentX-AgentBeats Phase 1 Winners

[2026.02] Received an invited talk certificate.

[2026.02] Added a new learning resource: MISSING Semester 2026 (MIT CSAIL)

2025

[2025.11] Our Small Methods paper has now been accepted and published online: Low-Cost Maskless Photolithography Using an LCD-3D Printer for Microelectronic Devices.

In this work, we successfully used a €200 3D printer to perform semiconductor photolithography experiments and scaled the process to wafer level. This demonstrates that what limits us is not hardware, but imagination.

Congratulations to Qianqian Wu (visiting PhD student from Jiangnan University) and Ying Zhang (PhD student in our group). This work is truly cool!

Small Methods related figure 1 Small Methods related figure 2

[2025.09] Our manuscript was accepted by APL Machine Learning 🎉 — first time receiving an acceptance notice over a weekend! Many thanks to Yang Liu, Qianjie Lei, Xiaolong He, and all teammates for the hard work. Although a fully human-out-of-the-loop autonomous lab is still ahead, we have validated in class that this teaching experiment design works very well. The paper is now available online: Building an affordable self-driving lab: Practical machine learning experiments for physics education using Internet-of-Things.

APL Machine Learning acceptance figure 1

[2025.09] We thank the organizers of Flatlands Beyond Graphene 2025. Prof. Yong Xie delivered an invited talk and chaired the Tuesday evening Shotgun Session (Milan, Italy).

Flatlands Beyond Graphene 2025

[2025.08] Delighted to host Prof. Eduardo R. Hernández and Prof. Andres Castellanos-Gomez during the hot summer. They shared deep theoretical insights and practical guidance with our students. Special thanks to graduate students Qianjie Lei and Yang Liu for their dedicated support. Seeds of research often sprout quietly during conversations.

Summer visit figure 1 Summer visit figure 2

[2025.07] Our paper on AI agents for scientific instrument control was accepted (June 2025) and later selected as a back cover in Small Structures (July 2025). The paper is online and has been featured by Nanowerk Spotlight. Paper DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/sstr.202500173 Back cover: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sstr.70047 Media: https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=67169.php

Small Structures back cover

[2025.07] At the quantum meeting organized by Prof. Xi Chen (ICMM-CSIC), Prof. Yu Shi (Fudan University) highly commended our work. Many thanks to Prof. Chen for organizing a top-tier meeting!
[2025.06] Congratulations to master’s students Kexin He, Yizhe Xue, and Xiaolong He on successfully defending their theses!

2024

[2024.05] Congratulations to masters students Haoran Li, Ziwei Dang, and Haitao Yang on successful thesis defenses!

[2024.05] Congratulations to two collaborative papers (advised by Dr. Nan Zhou) accepted in Small and Small Structures. Small Structures: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sstr.202400062 (Nan Zhou, Haoran Li) Small: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202400311 (Nan Zhou, Ziwei Dang)

[2024.02] Our Nano Letters paper was accepted: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c04815. Congratulations to Haitao Yang, Ruiqi Hu, Heng Wu, Xiaolong He, Yizhe Xue, Kexin He, Wenshuai Hu, and all collaborators. Equal first authors: Haitao Yang, Ruiqi Hu, Heng Wu, Xiaolong He; Corresponding authors: Yong Xie, Ping-Heng Tan, Eduardo R. Hern?ndez, Yan Zhou. Nano Letters team photo

2023

[2023.10] Our review article in Trends in Chemistry has been accepted. Congratulations to Wenliang and Kexin!

[2023.10] Our team won First Prize in the 2nd China Graduate Dual-Carbon Innovation & Creativity Competition (finals). Prof. Yong Xie received the Outstanding Advisor award.

[2023.10] Our Small Methods paper was selected as a cover. Congratulations!

[2023.06] Our work was highlighted in News & Views: https://www.oejournal.org/article/doi/10.29026/oea.2023.230077

[2023.03] Our study received a cover highlight: https://www.oejournal.org/oea/article/2023/3

[2023.02] Media coverage by Nanowerk: https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=62406.php

[2023.02] Prof. Yong Xie presented a poster at GEFES 2023.

[2023.01] Prof. Yong Xie presented a poster at MEMS 2023.

[2023.01] Prof. Yong Xie served on the Organizers & Advisory Committee of #NanoSeries2023. Conference link: https://nanoseriesiac.com/

[2023.01] Our work was selected as a back cover: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/admt.202370005

[2023.01] Media coverage: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975945 https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Item-Display/ItemId/229134

2022

[2022.12] Media coverage: https://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=62040.php

[2022.11] Our paper in Opto-Electronic Advances (CAS Tier-1 (Top)) was selected as a cover.

[2022.10] Two good news in one day! A paper with Wenshuai Hu et al. was accepted by Nano Research (CAS Tier-1 (Top)); our collaborative paper with Prof. Guoqiang Wu (Wuhan University) was accepted by MEMS 2023. Congratulations!

[2022.09] A paper (corresponding author: Yong Xie) was accepted by Opto-Electronic Advances (CAS Tier-1).

[2022.09] Congratulations to Wenliang Zhang on his successful PhD defense (co-supervised by Andres Castellanos-Gomez and Yong Xie)! He will join Shaanxi University of Science & Technology as an Associate Professor, and received the highest thesis honor Cum laude. Wenliang Zhang PhD defense

[2022.09] A collaborative paper was accepted by Nano Letters. Congratulations!

[2022.09] Our work is highlighted on Kudos: https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1063%25252F5.0096190/reader

[2022.08] A collaborative paper was accepted by Advanced Materials Technologies: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/admt.202201091

[2022.08] Our paper (first author: Wenshuai Hu; co-authors: Kexin He, Xiaolong He, Yan Bai, Chenyang Liu, etc.; corresponding author: Yong Xie) was accepted by Journal of Applied Physics (https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0096190). Congratulations! Journal of Applied Physics related figure

[2022.04] Graduate students Ziwei Dang and Haoran Li received the 2022 Graduate Innovation Fund.

[2022.04] Our paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters was selected as a Supplementary Cover.

[2022] Undergraduate & teaching achievements: National Undergraduate Innovation Project funded; Quantum Mechanics course awarded Shaanxi Provincial First-Class Course; undergraduate innovation project ranked first in defense; multiple Graduate Innovation Fund awards.

2020

IOP Publishing announced the 2020 China Top Cited Paper Awards (top 1% papers in 2017–2019 across IOP and partner journals). Two of our works in Nanoscience were recognized.

[2020] IOP China Top Cited Paper Award (Nanoscience): Controllable growth of monolayer MoS2 by chemical vapor deposition via close MoO2 precursor for electrical and optical applications.

[2020] IOP China Top Cited Paper Award (Nanoscience): NaCl-assisted one-step growth of MoS2-WS2 in-plane heterostructures.