Yifan Zhang

Yifan Zhang, Ph.D., was a doctoral student in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Florida. Yifan worked in Dr. Curtis Taylor’s and Dr. Jiang’s group. His doctoral study focused on tribology behavior of shape memory photonic crystals. He demonstrated that the nano structures can significantly boost the surface adhesion and friction force. The mechanism behind this behavior was the energy absorption effect in structural failure. By applying shape memory materials, the switchable adhesion and friction can be realized.