Xi-Cheng Zhang, is a Chinese-American Physicist. He was born in China, People's republic. Zhang is currently the J. Erik Jonsson ’22 Professor of Science in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has joint appointments in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, and the Department of Electrical Computer, and System Engineering. At present, he serves as the director of the Center for Terahertz Research. On August, 2011, Xi-Cheng was appointed as the director of the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics. He succeeds Professor Wayne Knox and assumes the position on January 1st, 2012.[1]
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Zhang received his BS in physics from Peking University, Beijing, China in 1982. He subsequently earned his M.Sc and PhD in physics from Brown University, RI, USA in 1983 and 1986 respectively. Before he joined in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he was a research physicist in Amoco Research Center and research scientist in Columbia University. He was appointed as Associate Professor in the department of physics at RPI in Jan, 1992. He was promoted to Professor and Distinguished Professor in Science on May, 1997 and Sep. 2001 respectively.[2] He was elected as the Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ins 2001 for "contributions to free-space terahertz optoelectronics".
He has been involved in ground breaking research using Terahertz radiation, a part of the spectrum between microwaves and infrared, and the traditional bounds of electronics, and phonics. Terahertz radiation, or "T-Rays" have many potential applications for 3D scanning, non-destructive testing, and spectroscopy.