YANGJUN CAI

**** ********* **., ******, ** ***** Phone: 979-***-**** Email: acwj04@r.postjobfree.com

Summary and Qualifications

• Passionate & self-motivated scientist with experience in cutting-edge technology development, product development and project management.

• Coatings/thin films • Polymer formulation • Adhesives/adhesion • Surface/interfacial science

• Silicone/polyurethane Chemistry • UV curing • Synthesis of organic and polymer • Characterization/analysis

• Product commercialization • Manufacturing • Design of experiment • MATLAB • CAD

Experience

Imprint Chemist, Bloo Solar, El Dorado Hills, CA 11/2015 ~ present

•Led coating group to develop formulations for imprinting coatings with high thermal resistance, low thermal expansion, and controlled interfacial release/adhesion for 3rd generation solar cells

•Optimized and resolved non-uniformity issue in coating process and successfully achieved uniform and high-fidelity coatings

•Designed GC-MS and FTIR to analyze and monitor conditions and performance of coatings (stability & chemistry)

•Identified cost effective epoxy coating mold/tooling to replace expensive nickel shim, enable a 90% reduction of manufacturing price and a 50% reduction of turnaround time

•Transition of new coating technique/imprinting materials to large-scale roll-on-plate coating process

•Documented test procedures, internal & external reports and presentations

Senior Research Engineer, nanoGriptech, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA 10/2013 ~ 10/2015

•Led R&D group to screen raw materials and develop polyurethane formulations based on structure-property relationships and DOE for gecko-inspired adhesives with over 50 customer-oriented projects

•Developed cost effective method for fabricating micro-structured gecko-inspired adhesives based on combination of spin-coating and capillary rise, enabling a 200% increase in friction and adhesion

•Resolved oxidation issue of silicone molds in manufacturing by calculating oxygen diffusion, developing formulation additives, and optimizing coating process

•Transition of lab-scale product fabrication to large-scale roll-to-roll (R2R) coating for mass-production

•Provided technical support for customers, manufacturing process, testing, and materials/instrument selection

•Prepared presentations, reports, proposals for internal meeting, external customers, and federal funding resources

Postdoctoral Fellow

Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 01/2013 ~ 09/2013

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 12/2009 ~ 01/2013

•Created close-packed nanoparticle coatings on hydrophobic polymer surfaces by surface modification for developing large-scale elliptical nanorings

•Developed a universal technique for fabricating multiscale asymmetric polymer/metal nanostructures by incorporating a mechanical deformation of silicone molds into soft lithography

•Developed 3D porous polymer coatings by self-assembly of condensed water droplets on UV curable photoresist

•Created fractured gold films by Young’s modulus mismatch between metal/silicone coatings for developing reversible surface-enhanced Raman scattering protein sensors

Research Assistant, University of Akron, Akron, OH 05/2005~12/2009

•Investigated adhesion promotion mechanism of polymer coatings by using amine-ended organosilane as primer

•Created ordered silicone gratings via simple mechanical peeling of silicone coatings bonded on glass surfaces

•Developed new porous polymer coatings by combining Marangoni flow of colloidal particles with dip-coating

•Use hemispherical silicone stamps to contact print stepwise gradient surfaces by using mixed organosilanes for controlling adsorption of colloids and biomolecules on surfaces

•Developed curved polymer domains by using dewetting of polymer coatings on bio-antifouling poly(ethylene glycol) monolayer to create protein patterns in one step with enhanced density

•Investigated effect of thermal annealing on stability and biocompatibility of colloidal nanoparticles modified by poly(ethylene glycol) silane, using methods including FTIR, TGA, and solid NMR

Research Fellow, Wuxi AppTec. Co. Ltd., Shanghai, China 10/2004~01/2005

•Led group to synthesize pharmaceutical intermediates for Merk & Co., Inc.

•Developed new methodology for purifying organic aldehydes by using sodium thiosulfate through precipitation leading to a 50% reduction in both cost and time

Research Associate

Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy Science, Shanghai, China 11/2003 ~ 09/2004

Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China 04/2003 ~ 11/2003

•Developed novel metal-catalyzed ring-opening coupling reaction of cyclopropenes with organic halides

•Synthesized series of organic intermediates via multiple steps (up to 10 steps)

Education

Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 2005~2009

Research area: Surface/interfacial science, polymer coatings/thin films

M.S. in Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, China 2000~2003

Research area: Organic synthesis and scale-up production

B.S. in Mineral Processing Engineering, Central South University, China 1996~2000

Area of study: Refinement and processing of metallic materials

Publication

Selected peer-reviewed publications (15+) and presentations (10+)

1.Cai, Y., Cao, Y.; Nordlander, P.; Cremer, P. S. “Fabrication of split-rings via stretchable colloidal lithography” ACS Photonics 2014, 1, 127-134.

2.Gordon Research Conference on Nanostructure Fabrication at University of New England, July, 2012.

3.Cai, Y.; Li, Y.; Nordlander, P.; Cremer, P. S. “Scalable fabrication of elliptical nanorings with highly tunable plasmonic resonances” Nano Letters 2012, 4881-4888.

4.Cai, Y.; Chen, J.; Yang, T.; Cremer, P. S. “Deflected capillary force lithography” ACS Nano 2012, 6, 1548-1556. (Highlighted in Perspective in ACS Nano).

5.Cai, Y; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Fracture-induced formation of parallel silicone strips” Journal of Materials Research 2010, 25, 803-809.

6.Cai, Y.; Yun, Y. H.; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Generation of contact-printing based stepwise micrometer-sized poly(ethylene glycol) gradient surfaces” Colloids and Surfaces, B 2010, 75, 115-122.

7.Cai, Y.; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Porous polymer films templated by Marangoni flow-induced water droplet arrays” Langmuir 2009, 25, 7638-7645.

8.Cai, Y.; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Marangoni flow induced self-assembly of hexagonal and stripelike nanoparticle patterns” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 6076-6077.

9.Cai, Y.; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Dewetting of polystyrene thin films on poly(ethylene glycol)-modified surfaces as a simple approach for patterning proteins” Langmuir 2008, 24, 5202-5208.

10.Choi, S.-H.; Cai, Y.; Zhang Newby, B.-m. “Stability enhancement of polystyrene thin films on aminopropyltriethoxysilane ultrathin layer modified surfaces” Silanes and Other Coupling Agents 2007, 4, 179-197.

11.Song, F.; Cai, Y.; and Zhang Newby, B. “Fabricating tunable nanoparticle density gradients with the contact printing based approach” Applied Surface Science 2006, 253, 2393-2398.

12.Ma, S.; Zhang, J.; Cai, Y.; Lu, L. “An X- (X = I, Br)-triggered ring-opening coupling reaction of cyclopropenes with organic halides” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2003, 125, 139**-*****.

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