Jincheng Du

Jincheng Du
Professor
Discovery Park E124
940-369-8184
du@unt.edu
  • Education

    Ph.D. (Ceramics) New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, 2004
    M.S. (Inorganic Materials) Wuhan University of Technology, 1995
    B.S. (Material Science) Wuhan University of Technology, 1992

  • Biography

    Dr. Jincheng Du is a Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. Dr. Du received his Ph.D. in Ceramics from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and later as a research associate at University of Virginia. He joined the MSE Department of UNT as a faculty member in 2007 and served as the Graduate Advisor and later Associate Department Chair for Graduate Program (2012-2019). Dr. Du’s research expertise lies in atomistic computer simulations of glass, ceramics, and nanostructured materials. He develops empirical potentials and computational tools to study glass, amorphous and nanostructured materials to understand their structure, surfaces, and interfaces. His current research topics include composition-structure-property relations of bioactive glasses, glass for nuclear waste immobilization, glass-water interactions and corrosion behaviors, glass-crystal interfaces and defects in ceramics and nanostructured materials. He is the Chair of Technical Committee on atomistic simulation and modeling of glasses of International Commission of Glass (ICG) and past Chair of the Glass and Optical Materials Division of the American Ceramic Society. Dr. Du’s research has been funded by NSF, DOE (ARPA-E, EFRC, NEUP), AFRL, ARL, SRC and industry (with over $18M total external funding, his portion $6M). He has published over 200 peer reviewed papers and 20 proceeding papers. He has also published two books and seven book chapters. Dr. Du is a frequent speaker on the topic in national and international conferences and has made over 90 plenary, invited talks or seminars. Dr. Du is the recipient of Early Career Award of Research and Creativity of UNT, Faculty Research Award of the College of Engineering , and Research Leadership Award of UNT . He is also a recipient of the Fulbright US Scholar Award, Gordon Fulcher Distinguished Scholar of Corning Inc., and the W.E.S. Turner Award of International Commission on Glass. Dr. Du is an elected Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the American Society of Materials (ASM International). 

  • Research
    Research Interests

    In FGM2L, we integrate atomistic computer simulations and materials characterization to investigate complex structures of materials, structural origin of properties with a focus on glass and glass-ceramic materials for energy, biomedicine, microelectronics, and environmental applications. Students are trained with both simulation and experimental skills to work on challenging scientific and engineering problems on federally or industrially funded projects. We welcome motivated students at all levels to perform high impact materials researches. The main research areas are summarized below:

     

    Atomistic computer simulations of material behaviors

    • Potential development for atomistic simulations of glass and ceramics Interatomic potentials are critical to atomistic simulations of materials. Our group develop interatomic potentials for silicate, borosilicate, and phosphosilicate glasses, as well as reactive potentials to study glass-water interactions, through empirical fitting and QM calculations.

     

    • L. Deng and J. Du, “Development of boron oxide potentials for atomistic computer simulations of multicomponent oxide glasses”, Journal of American Ceramic Society, 102 2482-2505 (2019).
    • L. Deng and J. Du, “Development of effective empirical potentials for molecular dynamics simulations of the structures and properties of boroaluminosilicate glasses”, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 453 177-194 (2016).
    • T.S. Mahadevan, J. Du, “Hydration and Reaction Mechanisms on Sodium Silicate Glass Surfaces from Molecular Dynamics with Reactive Force Fields”, Journal of American Ceramic Society, 102 3676-3690 (2020). [abstract]
    • Glass structure and structure-property relations Glass materials have many unique properties such as optical, dielectric, mechanical and others but the structure of glass lacks long range order hence defies any single experimental characterizations. We utilize both classical and ab initio based materials simulations to study the complex glass structures and structure-property relations of glass materials.

            

    • X. Lu, M. Ren, L. Deng, C. Benmore, J. Du, “Structure features of ISG borosilicate nuclear waste glasses revealed from high-energy X-ray diffraction and molecular dynamics simulations”, Journal of Nuclear Materials515 284-293 (2019). [abstract]
    • J. Du, L. Kokou, J. R. Rygel, Y. Chen, C. Pantano, R. Woodman and J. Belcher, "Structure of Cerium Phosphate Glasses: Molecular Dynamics Simulations", Journal of American Ceramic Society, 94 2393-2401 (2011). [abstract]
    • L. Kokou, J. Du, "Rare Earth Ion Clustering Behavior in Europium Doped Silicate Glasses: Simulation Size and Glass Structure Effect", Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 358 3408-2417 (2012). [abstract]
    • X. Lu, J. Du, “Quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) analysis of calcium aluminosilicate glasses based on molecular dynamics simulations”, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, 530 119772 (2020). [abstract]

     

    • Simulations of glass corrosion and glass-environment interactions

    Glass corrosion and glass–environment interactions play an important role from glass processing, packaging, to glasses for biomedical and nuclear waste disposal applications. MD simulations with reactive potentials and MC simulations were used to understand the corrosion mechanisms in glass materials.