Rate My Professor Xingchen Ye

Xingchen Ye is an Associate Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington, having joined the faculty as an assistant professor in January 2017 and receiving promotion with tenure in 2024. He obtained his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2006. Ye earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in December 2012, working with Professor Christopher B. Murray. His doctoral thesis, "Chemical design of optical metamaterials through self-assembly of plasmonic and phosphorescent nanocrystal superlattices," was recognized with the John G. Miller Award. From 2013 to 2016, he conducted postdoctoral research with Professor Paul Alivisatos at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on in-situ electron microscopy of nanocrystal transformation and self-assembled polymer nanocomposites.

The research in Ye's group emphasizes precision synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals and their integration into mesoscale assemblies for energy conversion, alongside in-situ multimodal imaging of nanoscale dynamics and materials transformation. His work intersects analytical, inorganic, materials, and physical chemistry, particularly in nanoscience. Ye has been honored with the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award in 2023 ($700,000) for developing nanoscale metal alloys to advance clean energy, photonics, solar panels, and drug development. Other accolades include the 2024 Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award for his contributions to materials chemistry coursework, the 2024 Agilent Solutions Innovation Research Award providing a Cary 5000 UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer, and the 2025 Nano Research Young Innovators Award for contributions to nanomaterial self-assembly. Notable publications comprise "Using binary surfactant mixtures to simultaneously improve the dimensional tunability and monodispersity in the seeded growth of gold nanorods" (Nano Letters, 2013), "A generalized ligand-exchange strategy enabling sequential surface functionalization of colloidal nanocrystals" (Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2011), "Improved size-tunable synthesis of monodisperse gold nanorods through the use of aromatic additives" (ACS Nano, 2012), and "Quasicrystalline order in self-assembled binary nanoparticle superlattices" (Nature, 2009). His scholarship has amassed over 15,600 citations, significantly impacting nanoscience and nanotechnology.