Prof. Zhong-Qun Tian (Z.-Q. Tian)

State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces and Department of Chemistry,

Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China

zqtian@xmu.edu.cn

EDUCATION

Entered Dept. Chem., Xiamen Univ., Feb. 1978, and graduated Feb. 1982 with degree of Bachelor.

Entered Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, Mar. 1982 for the degree of Matser.

Entered Department of Chemistry, University of Southampton, United Kingdom, Oct. 1983, and received a Ph.D, Jan. 1987 for a thesis entitled: "In-situ Raman Spectroscopic Studies on Electrodeposition and Electrosorption" (Advisor: Martin Fleischmann, FRS)

EMPLOYMENT

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, 1987.2-1989.1

Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, 1989.2-1991.12

Professor, State Key Lab of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, Xiamen Univ., 1992.1-

Deputy Director, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, 1996.9-

Director, State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, 2003.5-2011.1

Director, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, 2012.6-

Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of Xiamen University, 2013.9-2023.8

Tan Kah Kee Professor, Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, 2017.1-

Director, Fujian Innovation for Science and Technology of Energy Materials, 2019.9-2023.8

OTHER APPOINTMENTS & POSITIONS

Chair of the First RSC China Senior Expert Advisory Committee, 2022

Member of the Academic Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) 2022-

President of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), 2019-2020

Member of Executive Committee of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), 2017-2022

Member of Advisory Board of Department of Chemistry, NSF of China, 2006-2011, 2017-2023

Member of Committee of Science & Technology, Ministry of Education of China, 2016-2020

Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS), 2014-

Fellow of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), 2010-

Member of Standing Committee of Department of Chemistry, CAS, 2010-2021

Member of Advisory Board of Division of Physical and Biophysical Chemistry, IUPAC, 2008-

Regional Representative (China) of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), 2007-2009.

Chairman, Panel of Phys. Chem. Division, NSF of China, 2008-2009, Vice Chair, 2006-2007.

Executive Council Member of Chinese Chemical Society, 2006-2015

Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China, 2005-

Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, 2005-

Council Member of Chinese Society of Micro/Nano Technology, 2005-

Member of the Steering Committee of International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy 2004-2010

Chairman, Chinese Society of Electrochemistry, 2004-2007

Titular Member of Division of Physical and Biophysical Chemistry, IUPAC, 2004-2007

Chairman, Committee of Light (Raman) Scattering, Chinese Physical Society, 2002-2006

National Representative of Physical Chemistry Division, IUPAC, 2002-2003

National Representative of Electrochemistry Committee, IUPAC, 2001-2002

Guest Professor of Chemistry, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China, 2006-2012

Guest Professor of Chemistry, Univ. of Science and Technology of China, China, 2001-

Visiting Professor of Ecole Normal Superior, Paris, France, 2008.9, 2010.9.

EDITORIAL BOARDS

Associate Editor, Chemical Society Review, 2012-2024

Associate Editor, J. Raman Spectroscopy, 2009-2021

Associate Editor, Science China Chemistry, 2008-

Member, Advisory Board of Chemical Society Review, 2025-

Member, Advisory Board of ACS Eletrochemistry, 2024-

Member, Advisory Board of Next Materials, 2022-

Member, Advisory Board of eScience, 2021-

Member, Advisory Board of ACS Phys Chem Au, 2021-

Member, Advisory Board of Giant, 2020-

Member, Advisory Board of Matter, 2019-

Member, Advisory Board of Chem, 2016-

Member, Advisory Board of ACS Central Science, 2016-2019

Member, Advisory Board of National Science Rev., 2016-

Member, Advisory Board of Faraday Discussion, 2015-

Member, Advisory board of J. Brazilian Chem. Soc., 2014-

Member, Advisory Board of Anal. Chem., 2013-2016.

Member, Advisory Board of J. Energy Chemistry, 2013-

Member, Editorial Committee of Annual Rev. Anal. Chem., 2012-2016

Member, Advisory Board of J. Chem. Phys., 2011-

Member, Advisory Board of Chemical Sciences, 2010-

Member, Advisory Board of J. American Chemical Society, 2010-2023

Associate Editor, Applied Spectroscopy, 2009-2012

Member, Advisory Board of J. Phys. Chem., 2008-

Member, Advisory Board of Electrochimica Acta, 2008-2010.

Member, Advisory Board of J. Electroanalytical Chem., 2008-, Editor, 2010-2012.

Member, Advisory Board of Langmuir, 2007-2009

Member, Advisory Board of Chemical Communications, 2006 -

Member, Advisory Board of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2006 -2019

Member, Editorial Board of J. Chem. Phys. (Chinese), 2002-2018

Member, Advisory Board of J. Raman Spectroscopy, 2000-

Member, Editorial Board of Chinese J. Chemistry (English), 1999-2008

Member, Editorial Advisory Board of J. Electrochemistry (Chinese), 1994 -

Member, Editorial Board of J. Light Scattering (Chinese), 1992-

Member, Editorial Board of J. Applied Chemistry (Chinese), 1991 –

AWARDS and NATIONAL SPECIAL GRANTS

Raman Lifetime award, International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy  (2024)

Second Prize of National Neutral Science of China on Electrochemical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (2019)

Award in Life-Achievement of Spectroscopy of China (2018)

Award in Spectrochemical Analysis of American Chemistry Society (2017)

Prize of Innovation on Spectroscopy, Hitachi, Japan（2015）

Grand Prix Franco-Chinois Senior of Institute of France Academic Science (2015)

Honorary Doctor of Science Degree of the University of Southampton, UK (2013)

ISE-Elsevier Prize on Experimental Electrochemistry of International Society of Electrochemistry (2013)

The Faraday Medal Award of Royal Society of Chemistry (2012)

The Prix Jacques Tacussel of International Society of Electrochemistry (2013)

The Creative Research Group Grant of Natural Science Foundation of China (2001-2006)

The First Class Sci. and Tech. Progress Prize of the Ministry of Education of China (2001)

The Outstanding Young Scholar Award of Quishi Foundation of Hong Kong (1999).

The National Distinguished Young Scientist Grant of China (1996-2000)

The Trans-Century Young Scientist Award of the Ministry of Education of China (1994)

MAIN RESEARCH INTERESTS

Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy, Spectro-electrochemistry, Molecule assembly, Energy-chemistry, Nano-chemistry, Plasmonics

PUBLICATIONS

750 peer-reviewed papers, over 61,000 citations with H-index 102, 7 chapters of Encyclopedia and books, 2 books.

SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS

Tian has been recognized internationally on the methodological developments of electrochemical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (EC-SERS) and spectro-electrochemistry for fundamental molecular-level studies. His research feature and motivation is to solving the real problems of electrochemistry and spectroelectrochemistry. He always enjoys making novel approaches to break the long-term development bottlenecks, letting EC-SERS to be more powerful and versatile technique for electrochemistry, rather than making some progresses in a limited and comfortable box. His major contributions are set out below, in each he has been a major innovator and/or developer of the science.

1. Electrochemical Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (EC-SERS) of Pure Platinum and Iron Group Metals

Tian has led his group make an important breakthrough since the mid-1990s in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (EC-SERS) by which surface Raman enhancements could be imparted to the VIIIB transition metals of importance for electrochemistry, catalysis and interfacial chemistry. They developed several surface roughening procedures for suitable nanostructures, thus experimentally and theoretically demonstrated that SERS can be directly generated on pure Pt, Ru, Rh, Pd, Fe, Co and Ni electrodes, which were commonly considered as non-SERS active metals. Tian revealed that their surface enhancements range in general from one to three orders of magnitude. The overview of these works (‘Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering: From Noble to Transition Metals and from Rough Surfaces to Ordered Nanostructures’. Tian, ZQ*; Ren, B; Wu, DY. J. Phys. Chem. B, 106(37): 9463-9483, 2002) has been cited over 1400 times.

2. Shell-Isolated Nanoparticle-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SHINERS) for single-crystal or non-metallic electrode surfaces.

Based on the fact that SERS is nanostructure- and SPR-based enhancement phenomenon, Tian and coworkers have utilized a ‘borrowing SERS activity’ strategy and rationally designed various nanostructures to overcome the biggest limitation of materials generality of SERS since the early-2000s. They systematically combined the EC-SERS with the DFT/MD result to reveal complex electrochemical interfaces and the mechanistic origin of the exceptional electrocatalytic properties. Since 2010, Tian and coworkers have devised a method named as Shell-Isolated Nanoparticle-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SHINERS) for single-crystal or non-metallic surfaces. Gold nanoparticles are coated with ultrathin silica shells. The gold core provides Raman signal enhancement; the chemically inert shell prevents the core from coming into direct contact with probe/analyte molecules or the surface over which these particles are spread. This new method is capable of probing transition-metal and silicon surfaces as well as to semiconductors, living cells or fruit surfaces. Up to now, molecular-level investigations by Raman spectroscopy on diverse adsorbates at various material electrodes and atomically flat surfaces have been realized. The first paper (Shell-Isolated Nanoparticle-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy. Nature, 2010) has been cited over 3100 times.

3. Depth-sensitive plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (DS-PERS) for batteries and interphase electrochemistry

Recently Tian and collaborators focused on the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) playing crucial roles for the reversible operation of lithium metal batteries because the fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of SEI formation and evolution is still limited. They developed a depth-sensitive plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (DS-PERS) method to enable in-situ and nondestructive characterization to vertically resolve chemical changes of SEI. Based on the sandwich structure and synergistic enhancements of localized surface plasmons from nanostructured Cu, shell-isolated Au nanoparticles and Li deposits at different depths, they can monitor the formation and evolution of SEI in Li metal batteries. This strategy extends the SERS capability from a single interface (surface) to two interfaces (interphase), which reduces the gap between spectroelectrochemistry and batteries and other important applied systems with complex interphases. (Resolving the nanostructure and chemistry of solid-electrolyte interphases in lithium metal batteries by depth-sensitive plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Nature Commun. 2023).  

Besides the abovementioned contributions, Tian has a longstanding interest in developing instrument for SERS spectroelectrochemistry. In 1996 he designed and home-made a Raman-STM combined system by which STM images of electrode surfaces and SERS spectra could be simultaneously obtained for the first time, four years earlier than that of invention of tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). In 2006, he devised an instrument that combines SERS with a mechanically controllable break junction (MCBJ) technique to enable fine-tuning of the gap width of two gold tips. It allows for precise and stable adjustment of the gap on a chip by using a piezoelectric transducer, ranging from a few angstroms to several nanometers with a resolution of one angstrom. In the past three years he and coworkers home-made an electrochemical nanoscale IR (EC-nanoIR) instrument using peak-force mode of AFM to track the electrochemical reaction process at the electrode-electrolyte interface on a nanoscale (ca. 10 nm). They can monitor the heterogeneous distribution of electro-polymerization process of aniline and polyaniline by EC-nanoIR spectroscopy and obtained nanoIR, morphology, adhesion and Young’s modulus imaging simultaneously.

With EC-SERS (EC-PERS) as the core, he also made contributions on promoting spectro-electrochemistry and interfacial electrochemistry, and other relevant fields by editing the books, encyclopedias, and reviews/perspectives such as a review on Sixty Years of Electrochemical Optical Spectroscopy (final revision for Chem Soc Rev), and a review (Nanostructure-based plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for surface analysis of materials. Nature Reviews Materials, 2016) has been cited over 4100 times.

Overall Tian and his group championed the development of electrochemical Raman spectroscopic methods over two decades. The quality of his work on SERS and spectroelectrochemistry has been widely recognized internationally, he is regularly invited to conferences throughout Europe, Asia and America. He has published over 700 peer-reviewed papers, with over 53,000 citations (H-index of 100). He has also played a key role to make Xiamen University as one of the international centers on SERS/PERS and spectroelectrochemistry.

He was elected as Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (MCAS) and RSC Fellow in 2005, Fellow of International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) in 2010 and Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (FTWAS) in 2014. He received several awards from ISE, USA, UK, France, Japan and China. He currently is the Director of Fujian Science & Technology Innovation Laboratory for Energy Materials, member of editorial advisory board for over sixteen international journals including inaugural board of Chem. Sci., ACS Central Science, Chem., Matter, J. Energy Chem., Giant, ACS Phys. Chem. Au, eScience, Next Materials, ACS Electrochemistry and National Science Rev., and an associate editor for Science in China-Chemistry and Chem. Soc. Rev. He was an associate editor of J. Raman Spectroscopy (2009-2021).