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• [Award] 05/2026, Congrats to Ty Zurcher, Lia Ryan, and Matthew Sample on on receiving competitive 2026 Fall ASU FURI Fellowships, which include a $1,500 stipend and $400 in research supplies. Their projects focus on the device fabrication, nuclear fusion materials and ultra-fast sintering system, respectively.
• [Lab] 05/2026, Xu Group successfully completed the installation of a state-of-the-art Dual SEM Microprobe System at ASU, significantly enhancing our capabilities in local transport measurements at nanoscale.
• [Award] 04/2026, Prof. Xu won International Society of Solid State Ionics Young Scientist Award (YSA) Finalist
• [Press] 05/2026: Matthew Sample and Lia Ryan stood out at the 2026 ASU Innovation Showcase with their innovative research presentations, highlighting the impact of undergraduate research in the Xu Group.
• [Conference] 04/2026: Prof. Xu served as organizer of the symposium Defects and Transport in Ceramics and delivered an invited presentation in the symposium Electronic and Ionic Materials in Energy Storage and Conversion Systems at the ACerS Spring 2026 Meeting in Bellevue, Washington.
• [Press] 04/2026, Congratulations to Lia Ryan on being featured in the ASU FURI booklet and across ASU social media for her outstanding research on nuclear fusion materials!
• [Lab] 03/2026: Xu Group successfully installed an advanced physical vapor deposition (PVD) system integrated with an argon-filled glovebox, enabling the deposition of air-sensitive materials, including ultrathin lithium, sodium, and their alloys, as well as solid electrolytes and cathode materials.
• [Press] 02/2026, Xu Group was featured on the ASU homepage for its research advancing the fundamental understanding of ion transport under extreme conditions.
• [Award] 01/2026, Prof. Xu won U.S. Department of Energy Early CAREER Research Grant, $875,000, 2025-2030
• [Publication] 01/2026, Prof. Xu published a study in Nature Materials examining how thin a surface coating needs to be to help improve solid-state batteries. Press coverage is available here.
• [People] 01/2026, We are pleased to welcome Qiwen Chen to the group as a PhD student starting in Spring 2026. Qiwen received her Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and her research will focus on ion transport at interfaces in electroceramics.
• [Award] 01/2026, Congratulations to Undergraduate Researcher Lia Ryan and Matthew Sample on receiving competitive ASU FURI Fellowships, which include a $1,500 stipend and $400 in research supplies. Their projects focus on the synthesis of porous solid electrolytes and the development of an ultra-fast sintering system, respectively.
• [Conference] 12/2025, Prof. Xu organized and chaired a symposium with Dr. Yi Lin (NASA), Prof. Kelsey Hatzell (Princeton), and Prof. Julia Yang (Georgia Tech) on “New Chemistries, Multiscale Modeling and Advanced Manufacturing for Solid-State Batteries”, MRS Fall 2025, November 30-December 5, Boston, MA.
• [Conference] 10/2025, Prof. Xu chaired and delivered an invited talk at the ACerS Robert B. Sosman Award Symposium during MS&T 2025 in Columbus, Ohio.
• [Conference] 08/2025, Prof. Xu chaired a session of “Low Dimensional Battery Chemistries: Nanostructures, Coatings, and Thin Films” along with Dr. Yukio Cho (Stanford University) and Prof. Hui Wang (University of Louisville) at ACS Fall 2025, Washington, DC
• [Conference] 02/2025, Prof. Xu was invited to speak in the sessions of S2-Next generation electrodes and electrolytes and S11-Emergent phenomena in complex oxide thin films, Electronic Materials and Applications (EMA) 2025, Denver CO
• [Award] 12/2024, Congrats Brendan Sourwine and Keegan Erdmann from Barrett, The Honors College for winning the prestigious FURI Scholarship for their proposed work on solid-state batteries!
• [Conference] 12/2024: Prof. Xu presented research at the MRS Fall 2024 Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, including an invited talk in the CH04 symposium, Coupled Mechanisms and Mechanical Characterization, and a contributed talk in the EN08 symposium, Solid-State Batteries.
• [People] 08/2024, We are pleased to welcome Xukun Ma and Cauê de Souza Coutinho Nogueira as they begin their PhD journey in the Xu Group!
• [Seminar] 08/2024, Xu was invited to deliver a lecture on defects in electroceramics at a seminar hosted by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
• [Award] 06/2024, Congrats! Xu was selected a Phase I Finalist in the Bezos Earth Fund Greenhouse Gas Removal Ideation Prize in collobration with Prof. Lin and Prof. Wei.
• [Seminar] 06/2024, Xu was invited back to his alma mater, Northwestern University, by Professor Sossina Haile to provide a talk on navigating a career in clean energy.
• [Conference] 05/2024, Xu was invited to serve as a panelist for the early-career faculty panel in the 1st RCSA Fellows Conference.
• [Seminar] 03/2024, Xu was invited to give a seminar talk in the Department of Physics & Engineering Physics at Tulane University on transport mechanism in oxide electroceramics.
• [Conference] 03/2024, Xu was invited to give a talk at the ACS Spring 2024 at the Symposium: “Energy Storage Systems: In-Situ Characterization Studies,” Sunday, March 17, 2024 from 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM, New Orleans, LA
• [Award] 02/2024, Congrats! Xu won Scialog Collaborative Award on Negative Emissions Science.
• [Honor] 02/2024, Xu was selected as 2023 Top Reviewer by Materials Today Energy.
• [Honor] 11/2023, Xu was selected as Scialog Fellow: Negative Emissions Science.
• [Honor] 09/2023, Xu was nominated as an Early Career Distinguished Presenter in MRS Fall 2023.
• [Conference] 08/2023, Xu was scheduled to give a talk at the MRS Fall 2023 Symposium titled “EN02—Solid-State Batteries—Materials, Processes, Characterizations, and Scale-up,” on November 28, 2023 in Boston, MA
• [Lab] 06/2023, set to launch in January 2024, Xu Lab will be dedicated to pioneering next-generation energy technology.