Dr. Sheng's research interest focuses on understanding the structure and property relationships of metastable materials, such as metallic glasses and nano-structured materials. Materials as such are characterized by their lack of long-range atomic periodicity (as in metallic glasses) or by their high degrees of defects (as in nano-structured materials). Owing to their unique structural features, these emerging materials exhibit unusual physical properties and play an important role in advanced technologies. Currently, Dr. Sheng's research area covers several challenging topics on the frontier of metastable materials research: (1) Atomic-level structural analysis of amorphous materials; (2) Phase transitions in glasses and liquids; (3) Properties and their atomistic mechanisms of metastable materials. His research endeavors involve extensive computer modeling and simulation of materials, varying from first-principles calculations based on quantum mechanics to large-scale classical molecular dynamics to continuum analysis. In addition to computer simulation, Dr. Sheng's research incorporates state-of-the-art structural characterization employing synchrotron X-ray diffraction conducted at Advanced Photon Source. His research goal is to develop new computational algorithms and approaches to effectively deal with difficult problems in materials research, to understand fundamental issues in materials science, and to design new materials of scientific and technological importance
