Energy shortage and climate change are the most crucial issues we need to deal with. Finding new ways to power human`s life without creating additional emission to global warming is the goal for future. The sun is the most abundant and sustainable energy resource. Sunlight can excite the electrons which can be converted it to electricity via solar cell. Sunlight can also generate heat which can be converted to electricity by thermoelectric materials. When sun works with seawater, one of the products H2 is the cleanest energy.

Our main research interest is to reveal the energy generation/conversion/storage mechanism for different energy material systems, such as solar hydrogen materials, thermoelectric materials, smart materials, nanocatalysts systems. It is not an easy task to make these energy material systems for practical use without shedding light on the fundamental properties, such as electronic and atomic structures. We utilize the synchrotron-based x-ray spectroscopies to determine the electronic and atomic structure of various energy materials. In particularly, in situ/operando x-ray spectroscopies help to track how the electronic and atomic structure change during energy generation/conversion/storage.