Huolin Xin
Professor (with tenure), Department of Physics and Astronomy
Biography
Huolin Xin, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. Xin received a Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University in 2011 under the supervision of David A. Muller. Before joining UC Irvine in 2018, he served as Associate Materials Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Center for Functional Nanomaterials. His research focuses on developing and applying electron microscopy techniques, including in situ transmission electron microscopy and deep learning-enabled imaging methods, to study energy storage materials and electrocatalysts at the atomic scale.
Xin is an elected Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America and has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate from 2021 through 2024. He received the Department of Energy Early Career Award in 2020, the Materials Research Society Outstanding Early-Career Investigator Award in 2021, and the Microscopy Society of America Burton Medal in 2021. He was named a Chancellor's Fellow at UC Irvine in 2024 and received Intel's Outstanding Researcher Award in 2025. His work has been featured among Brookhaven National Laboratory's top scientific achievements multiple times.
Xin has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, including 43 papers in Science and Nature family journals, with 18 as corresponding author. His research has generated more than 43,000 citations with an h-index of 100. He has delivered over 80 invited presentations at conferences and institutions worldwide and served as Chair for the Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting in 2020. His research group operates the DeepEMlab, which develops artificial intelligence tools for electron microscopy and applies advanced characterization techniques to battery materials, solid-state electrolytes, and single-atom catalysts.
Return to topEducation
- Ph.D. in Physics, Cornell University, 2011
- B.S. in Physics, Peking University, 2005
Distinctions
- Intel's Outstanding Researcher Awards, 2025
- Highly Cited Researcher, 2021-2022, 2023-2024
- Lee Hsun Lecture Award by Institute of Metal Research, 2025
- MSA Fellow, 2024
- Department of Energy Early Career Award, 2020
- Chancellor's Fellow title, 2024
- MRS Outstanding Early-Career Investigator Award, 2021
- Microscopy Society of America Burton Medal, 2021
- Castaing Award, 2010-2011
- Chair for Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting and Vice Chair, 2019-2020
Areas of Expertise
- Energy Materials Characterization
- Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes
- Solid-State Electrolyte Interfaces
- Bimetallic Nanocatalyst Oxidation
- Electron Tomography Reconstruction
- Deep Learning Image Segmentation
- Operando Transmission Electron Microscopy
Recent Publications
- Wang L., Zhang R., Wang C., Wang Z., Jing Y., Zhao P., Xie Y., Ge M., Ma L., Waluyo I., Hunt A., Trask S.E., Lin R., Xin H.L., “Complex-Concentrated Anion Doping Enables Ultra-Stable Lattice Oxygen and Structural Integrity in Lithium-Rich Layered Oxide Cathodes” (opens in new tab), Advanced Materials, 2026.
- Yubin He, Peng Zhao, Lei Wang, Yaqi Jing, Yanhe Li, Huolin L. Xin, “An Adhesive Adaptation Layer Mitigates the Interfacial Instabilities of Rigid Polymer Electrolyte” (opens in new tab), Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 137, pp. e202424304, 2025.
- Mengyuan Zhou, Yaqi Jing, Zhen Wang, Huolin L. Xin, “Revealing the Correlation between Coating Content and Li+ Diffusion Kinetics of Nickel-Rich Cathode in Li-Ion Batteries” (opens in new tab), Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 172, pp. 060517, 2025.
- Chunyang Wang, Yubin He, Peichao Zou, Qi He, Ju Li, Huolin L. Xin, “Nanoscale Origin of the Soft-to-Hard Short-Circuit Transition in Inorganic Solid-State Electrolytes” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 147, pp. 19084-19092, 2025.
- Chunyang Wang, Rui Zhang, Ju Li, Huolin L. Xin, “Resolving electrochemically triggered topological defect dynamics and structural degradation in layered oxides” (opens in new tab), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 122, pp. e2409494122, 2025.
- Yubin He, Rui Zhang, Peichao Zou, Ryan Wonu Chu, Ruoqian Lin, Kang Xu, Huolin L. Xin, “Polyelectrolyte membrane enables highly reversible zinc battery chemistry via immobilizing anion and stabilizing water” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 147, pp. 6427-6438, 2025.
- Dechao Chen, Yimeng Cai, Yi Xiao, Chengqiang Wang, Yong Li, Ke Ma, Dongdong Xiao, Hsiao-Tsu Wang, Chi-Feng Lee, Linjie Zhang, Hirofumi Ishii, Yu-Cheng Shao, Nozomu Hiraoka, Lili Han, Xueming Liu, Huolin L. Xin, “Electrosynthesis of Urea on High‐Density Ga─Y Dual-Atom Catalyst via Cross‐Tuning” (opens in new tab), Advanced Materials, vol. 37, pp. 2420593, 2025.
- Ren L., Zou P., Xin H., “Boosting the high voltage performance of spinel LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cathode through an all-fluorinated electrolyte” (opens in new tab), Energy Materials and Devices, vol. 3, 2025.
- Aksoy D., Xin H.L., Rupert T.J., Bowman W.J., “Human perception-inspired grain segmentation refinement using conditional random fields” (opens in new tab), Materials Characterization, vol. 230, 2025.
- Yubin He, Chunyang Wang, Rui Zhang, Peichao Zou, Zhouyi Chen, Seong-Min Bak, Stephen E. Trask, Yonghua Du, Ruoqian Lin, Enyuan Hu, Huolin L. Xin, “A self-healing plastic ceramic electrolyte by an aprotic dynamic polymer network for lithium metal batteries” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 15, pp. 10015, 2024.
- Chunyang Wang, Yaqi Jing, Dong Zhu, Huolin L. Xin, “Atomic origin of chemomechanical failure of layered cathodes in all-solid-state batteries” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, pp. 17712-17718, 2024.
- Yubin He, Chunyang Wang, Ruoqian Lin, Enyuan Hu, Stephen E. Trask, Ju Li, Huolin L. Xin, “A Self‐Healing, Flowable, Yet Solid Electrolyte Suppresses Li‐Metal Morphological Instabilities” (opens in new tab), Advanced Materials, vol. 36, pp. 2406315, 2024.
- Peichao Zou, Chunyang Wang, Yubin He, Huolin L. Xin, “Making Plasticized Polymer Electrolytes Stable Against Sodium Metal for High‐Energy Solid‐State Sodium Batteries” (opens in new tab), Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 136, pp. e202319427, 2024.
- Lili Han, Chen Sun, Hsiao-Tsu Wang, Wei-Xuan Lin, Jeng-Lung Chen, Chih-Wen Pao, Yu-Chun Chuang, Chia-Hsin Wang, Jigang Zhou, Jian Wang, Way-Faung Pong, Huolin L. Xin, “Interrogation of 3d Transition Bimetallic Nanocrystal Nucleation and Growth Using In Situ Electron Microscope and Synchrotron X-ray Techniques” (opens in new tab), Nano Letters, vol. 24, pp. 7645-7653, 2024.
- Peichao Zou, Chunyang Wang, Yubin He, Huolin L. Xin, Ruoqian Lin, “A Water-in-Salt Electrolyte for Room-Temperature Fluoride-Ion Batteries Based on a Hydrophobic-Hydrophilic Salt” (opens in new tab), Nano Letters, vol. 24, pp. 5429-5435, 2024.
- Chunyang Wang, Mingde Qin, Tianjiao Lei, Liyang Wan, Sashank Shivakumar, Kim Kisslinger, Timothy J. Rupert, Jian Luo, Huolin L. Xin, “Compositional inhomogeneity and its effect on the hardness of nanostructured refractory high-entropy alloys” (opens in new tab), Materials Characterization, vol. 207, pp. 113563, 2024.
- Lulu Ren, Peichao Zou, Lei Wang, Yaqi Jing, Huolin L. Xin, “Effect of vinylene carbonate additive in polyacrylate-based polymer electrolytes for high-voltage lithium-metal batteries” (opens in new tab), Energy Materials and Devices, vol. 2, 2024.
- Xin H.L., Wang C., “Cryogenic TEM for Soft-Hard and Liquid-Hard Interfaces in Nanotechnology and Energy Sciences” (opens in new tab), Microscopy and Microanalysis, vol. 30, pp. 2161, 2024.
- Wang Z., Jing Y., Xin H.L., “Toward Single Particle Phases Mapping in Degraded Layered Oxide Cathodes via 4D-STEM” (opens in new tab), Microscopy and Microanalysis, vol. 30, pp. 1779-1780, 2024.
- Xin H.L., Wang C., He Y., Jing Y., “In Situ TEM for Uncovering Electro-Chemo-Mechanical Failures of Li Anode and Ceramic Solid-State Electrolytes in Li-Metal Batteries” (opens in new tab), Microscopy and Microanalysis, vol. 30, pp. 1753, 2024.
Most Cited Publications
- Wang D., Xin H.L., Hovden R., Wang H., Yu Y., Muller D.A., Disalvo F.J., Abruna H.D., “Structurally ordered intermetallic platinum-cobalt core-shell nanoparticles with enhanced activity and stability as oxygen reduction electrocatalysts” (opens in new tab), Nature Materials, vol. 12, pp. 81-87, 2013.
- Lili Han, Xijun Liu, Jinping Chen, Ruoqian Lin, Haoxuan Liu, Fang Lü, Seongmin Bak, Zhixiu Liang, Shunzheng Zhao, Eli Stavitski, Jun Luo, Radoslav R Adzic, Huolin L. Xin, “Atomically Dispersed Molybdenum Catalysts for Efficient Ambient Nitrogen Fixation” (opens in new tab), Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 58, pp. 2321, 2019.
- Rui Zhang, Chunyang Wang, Peichao Zou, Ruoqian Lin, Lu Ma, Liang Yin, Tianyi Li, Wenqian Xu, Hao Jia, Qiuyan Li, Sami Sainio, Kim Kisslinger, Stephen E. Trask, Steven N. Ehrlich, Yang Yang, Andrew M. Kiss, Mingyuan Ge, Bryant J. Polzin, Sang Jun Lee, Wu Xu, et al., “Compositionally complex doping for zero-strain zero-cobalt layered cathodes” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 610, pp. 67-73, 2022.
- Lili Han, Shoujie Song, Mingjie Liu, Siyu Yao, Zhixiu Liang, Hao Cheng, Zhouhong Ren, Wei Liu, Ruoqian Lin, Gaocan Qi, Xijun Liu, Qin Wu, Jun Luo, Huolin L. Xin, “Stable and efficient single-atom Zn catalyst for CO2 reduction to CH4” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 142, pp. 12563-12567, 2020.
- Jiayi Qin, Hui Liu, Peichao Zou, Rui Zhang, Chunyang Wang, Huolin L. Xin, “Altering ligand fields in single-atom sites through second-shell anion modulation boosts the oxygen reduction reaction” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 144, pp. 2197-2207, 2022.
- Lili Han, Hao Cheng, Wei Liu, Haoqiang Li, Pengfei Ou, Ruoqian Lin, Hsiao-Tsu Wang, Chih-Wen Pao, Ashley R. Head, Chia-Hsin Wang, Xiao Tong, Cheng-Jun Sun, Way-Faung Pong, Jun Luo, Jin-Cheng Zheng, Huolin L. Xin, “A single-atom library for guided monometallic and concentration-complex multimetallic designs” (opens in new tab), Nature Materials, vol. 21, pp. 681-688, 2022.
- Weiping Xiao, Wen Lei, Mingxing Gong, Huolin L. Xin, Deli Wang, “Recent Advances of Structurally Ordered Intermetallic Nanoparticles for Electrocatalysis” (opens in new tab), ACS Catalysis, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 3237-3256, 2018.
- Wang D., Xin H.L., Yu Y., Wang H., Rus E., Muller D.A., Abruna H.D., “Pt-decorated PdCo@Pd/C core-shell nanoparticles with enhanced stability and electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 132, pp. 17664-17666, 2010.
- Li H., Xin H.L., Muller D.A., Estroff L.A., “Visualizing the 3D internal structure of calcite single crystals grown in agarose hydrogels” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 326, pp. 1244-1247, 2009.
- Libing Yao, Peichao Zou, Chunyang Wang, Jiahao Jiang, Lu Ma, Sha Tan, Kevin A. Beyer, Feng Xu, Enyuan Hu, Huolin L. Xin, “High-entropy and superstructure-stabilized layered oxide cathodes for sodium-ion batteries” (opens in new tab), Advanced Energy Materials, vol. 12, pp. 2201989, 2022.
Contact Information
Email: huolin.xin@uci.edu
Address: 220A Rowland Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-4575
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Last updated on 2/24/2026.