Dr. Yu's research has been broadly centered on creative design and synthesis of functional nanomaterials, fundamental understanding of their chemical and physical properties, and development of large-scale assembly and integration methodologies to enable their technologically important applications in energy, environment, and sustainability technologies. He has published ~300 papers in many prominent scientific journals including Science, Nature, Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Reviews Chemistry, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Catalysis, Nature Sustainability, Nature Water, Nature Synthesis, Nature Communications, Science Advances, PNAS, Chemical Reviews, Chemical Society Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Chem, Joule, Nano Letters, ACS Nano, ACS Central Science, Applied Physics Reviews, Materials Today, Nano Today, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Materials Horizons, etc. His publications have received total citation of ~80,000 times with H-index ~160. He is consistently ranked as one of the global Top Highly Cited Researchers in both fields of Materials Science and Chemistry by Thomson Reuters (Web of Science) since 2017. His research works have been featured in over 200 major science and technology media worldwide, such as Nature News, Science News, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC News, Fox News, BBC News, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Discovery, National Geographic, Scientific American, Thomson Reuters, World Economic Forum, Business Standard, Daily Mail (UK), The Times (UK), Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany), La Repubblica (Italy), Al Jazeera (Arabic), France News, USA Today, XINHUA (China), SINA (China), SOHU (China), Tencent (China), The Indian Express, Times of India, Irish Times, Daily Telegraph (Australia), The Australian, News.com (Australia), DailyPost (Korea), National Post (Canada), Science Daily, R&D Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Popular Science, Ars Technica, Futurism, New Scientist, Reddit, Yahoo!, C&EN, Gizmodo, Gizmag, IEEE Spectrum, E&T, Design News, Phys.Org, SciTech Daily, Chemistry World, Materials World, Physics World, MRS Bulletin, Chemistry Views, Materials Views, Popular Mechanics, Texas Monthly, Daily Texan, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, The Alcalde, etc. Currently, his main research interests include:

• Nano-Architected functional materials for energy storage and conversion: next-generation lithium batteries and beyond-lithium batteries, supercapacitors, electrocatalysis, thermoelectrics, fuel cells
• Sustainable organic nanomaterials for solar water purification and atmospheric water harvesting: solar desalination, atmospheric water harvesting, wastewater treatment, sustainable agriculture
• Self-assembled nanostructures and bio-inspired materials for advanced energy, healthcare and sensor technologies
• Hybrid inorganic-organic nanomaterial systems for functional interfaces with biological systems

The nature of research program in Dr. Yu's group is highly interdisciplinary, and it explores the basic principles in chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering to enable both fundamental understanding of novel materials with designed nano-architectures, and exciting development of their technological applications. Truly motivated graduate and undergraduate students and postdoc researchers are warmly welcome!