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Most of Expert's scientific career has been devoted to the development of surface modification and thin film deposition technologies, including plasma nitriding, plasma carbonization, boriding, chromizing, cathodic arc, filtered cathodic arc, pulsed laser ablation, magnetron sputtering, pulsed mid-frequency dc magnetron sputtering, plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, and rf-dc plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Expert has developed a combined rf and dc plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technology, which combines the high plasma density of the rf plasma and the high substrate bias of dc power supply, enabling the deposition of high quality diamond like carbon films and carbon nitride films. He also developed a dc plasma enhanced laser ablation technology, which uses additional dc plasma to enhance the ionization of the gases during deposition of diamond like carbon films. The expert has developed an plasma nitriding and carbilizing process for stainless steel. In addition, an duplex coating system, combining plasma nitriding and surface coatings, were developed, which can significant improve the wear resistance, abrasion resistance, surface hardness, galling resistance, fatigue, and corrosion resistance of the stainless steel. He published more than 70 papers in the peer-reviewed professional journals.

In the past 15 years, experts has been working on the characterization of the surface morphology, microstructure, crystalline structure, mechanical properties, including internal stress, microhardness, Young’s modulus, adhesion, wear resistance, of metal bulk materials and hard coatings and thin films, including TiN, TiAlN, TiSiN, TiCrN, CrN, diamond like carbon (DLC), metal containing diamond like carbon, TiN/Ti multilayers, using atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), FTIR, Raman, surface profilometer, microhardness indenter, nanoindenter, Rockwell adhesion tester, scratch adhesion tester, and Pin-on-disk tribometer.

Expert has been working on the development of inorganic coatings (diamond like carbon based nanocomposite coatings, Ag based coatings, and titanium oxide (TiO2) coatings) for medical devices, such as implants, stents, pacemarkers, artificial heart, to improve their hemocompatibility, biocompatibility, antibacterial, antimicrobial, and corrosion resistance.

One of the expert’s goals is to apply the developed hard coatings in the cutting tools. Expert has extensive experience in the design and selection of base materials and the surface modification techniques and surface coatings for cutting tools, dental instruments, and surgical instruments to improve their wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and oxidization resistance. Expert has applied a surface modification technology to WC cutting tools, dental instruments, drill bits, which improve their lifetime by >2 times, >100 times, and >10 times, respectively.

Expert has been actively involved in the area of stainless steels, including austenitic, ferritic, martensitic, dual-phase, and precipitation hardening (PH) stainless steels. Expert has assisted many customers with steel selection, heat treatment, and failure analysis of various stainless steels. Some recent work involved heat treatment of 440-XH, 440-C, 420, 17-4, 13-8, and the selection of stainless steel for dental and surgical instruments, including dental scalers and drill bits, and corrosion resistance of 440-XH, 440-C, and 316L.


Expert has extensive experience and knowledge in the selection, deposition process optimizing, and characterization of thin films and coatings. The range of thin films include, diamond like carbon (DLC), doped diamond like carbon, carbon nitride, TiN, ZrN, TiAlN, TiSiN, CrN, TiCN, Ag, Cu, WC, MgO, TiO2, and ZrO2. He has designed and developed coatings for meeting specific demands such as wear, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility, antimicrobial, antibacterial, and hemocompatibility.

Expert has direct industry experience in the surface preparation and cleaning for thin films and coatings deposition to prevent the delamination of the coatings from the substrates. Expert has developed a surface cleaning process for the deposition of TiN based hard coatings on dental instruments, which reduced the production reject rate from >30% to <5%.

Expert has direct experience in the corrosion testing, corrosion protection by surface coatings, and providing advice on the proper choice of materials and surface coatings. Export has strong background and experience in the corrosion (alkaline corrosion, chlorine corrosion, and autoclave corrosion, biological corrosion) prevention of steels, especially stainless steels, by applying chemical inert coatings, such as diamond like carbon coatings, TiN, TiSiN, and TiO2, and sacrificial coatings, such as Al, Zn, AlNi, and AlZn coatings.

Expert has direct experience with the heat treatment and superelastic behavior of TiNi shape memory alloy.

Expert has had many years of experience in the metallurgical engineering. He was an associate professor in the Department of Metal Materials and Heat Treatment. He taught courses of “Physical Metallurgy” and “Phase Transformation in Solid State” for graduate and undergraduate students in a top 10 university in China. He developed a new alloy steel for plastic die and mould, which are commercial available in China. He has extensive knowledge of the different heat treating procedures, including annealing, austenitizing, quenching, tempering, solution treating, precipitation hardening, and surface alloying, from a particular steel of alloy. Expert has recommended the optimum heat treating procedures for obtaining the properties required for particular applications. Expert has involved in the corrosion and breakage failure analysis of dental instruments (scalers and ultrasonic dental instruments) to determine source modes and causes, and to provide solutions for the failure of dental instruments.

Expert has more than 15 years of academic and industry experience in developing of advanced coating materials to improve the surface hardness, wear resistance, abrasion resistance, corrosion resistance, and compatibility of materials for dental instruments, surgical instruments, medical devices, hard disk drives.


He recommended a deposition process for TiAlN coatings using cathodic arc deposition technology to improve the service life of hot work dies.He has recommended the optimum heat treating procedures for steels and alloys for obtaining the properties required for particular applications. He has recommended the base material, and surface modification and coating deposition techniques and processes for cutting tools and cutting dental and surgical instruments to improve their wear and corrosion resistance.