Recently, Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education and Shaanxi Provincial Academic Degree Committee officially issued the "Notice on the Announcement of the 2024 Shaanxi Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Selection Results" (Shaanxi Education (2024) No. 39). Yuan Hui, a 2018 doctoral student from College of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (Instructor: Professor Yang Rusen's doctoral dissertation entitled "Synthesis and Properties of Piezoelectric Materials Based on Amino Acids" was awarded "Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of Shaanxi Province in 2024".

During her doctoral study, Dr. Yuan Hui has been committed to the research in the field of functional biomaterials and has achieved fruitful scientific research results. He has published 11 SCI papers as the first author or co-first author, including 7 SCI Region I papers and 2 papers selected as cover articles due to outstanding research value and innovation. In her doctoral dissertation, Yuan Hui used a combination of theoretical calculation and experimental verification to deeply explore the internal relationship between hydrogen bonding and physical properties of materials, and then revealed the generation mechanism of piezoelectric properties of organic materials, providing a scientific basis for the screening of high-performance piezoelectric materials. In this paper, an orderly and dense piezoelectric amino acid array based on stranski-krastanov growth principle is proposed, and this achievement is applied to nanogenerators to effectively improve the electromechanical conversion efficiency. Yuan Hui also used the common self-assembly strategy to regulate the morphology and composition of the dipeptide self-assembly array, optimize the crystal lattice parameters and improve the piezoelectric constant, and successfully applied the array to the stress sensor. Finally, by allowing amino acids and dipeptide molecules to grow together with metal ions to form a eutectic structure, Yuan Hui successfully realized the reversal of molecular polarization, and then effectively regulated its stability, surface potential and piezoelectric properties, creating a stable and high-performance nanogenerator.

Dr. Yuan Hui's achievements can not be separated from the careful guidance of her tutor Professor Yang Rusen. Professor Yang is rigorous in academic research and strives for excellence, providing students with broad research ideas and a solid theoretical foundation. In life, he cares about students, creates a good research and learning environment for students, and guides students to continue to advance on the road of scientific research.

Dr. Yuan Hui won the outstanding doctoral dissertation of Shaanxi Province, which is not only a high recognition of her personal academic ability and research achievements, but also a reflection of Professor Yang Rusen's guidance, and also won honor for the Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology College and even the entire school. This achievement will encourage more graduate students to follow their example, study hard and innovate in academic research, and contribute their own strength to promoting the development of disciplines and social progress.