Education

Academic Degrees

• Ph.D., Materials, Imperial College London, 2011
• M. Eng, Materials, Tsinghua University, 2008
• B. Eng, Materials, Tsinghua University, 2006

Areas of Research and Professional Interest

• Materials for extreme environments: high-entropy ceramics, high-entropy alloys, ultra-high temperature ceramics, ODS alloys, MAX phases. 
• Advanced Manufacturing: laser additive manufacturing, selective laser sintering, laser shock peening, spark plasma sintering. 
• Corrosion: stress corrosion cracking, high-temperature oxidation.
• Irradiation damage: irradiation defects, irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking
• Microstructural characterizations: in-situ TEM deformation, irradiation, heating, and electrical experiements

About Bai Cui

Bai leads the Materials for Extreme Environments Laboratory at UNL. Bai’s lab uses transformative concepts, such as ‘high-entropy’ (i.e., ‘compositionally complex’ or ‘multi-principal component’) and other composition and microstructure design (e.g., oxide dispersion strengthening) concepts, to develop new metal and ceramic materials for extreme environments in the next-generation energy systems, which can survive high temperature, corrosive and irradiation environments. 

His team is a leading research group in the field of high-entropy materials. He authored the first peer-reviewed publication on high-entropy carbides, which was published on May 19, 2018, in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. This work has since become a highly cited article in the field. Furthermore, he led the pioneering investigation into the irradiation damage behavior of high-entropy carbides, demonstrating their exceptional irradiation resistance in a study published in Acta Materialia in 2020.

Bai's team is also actively developing novel technologies of laser processes for material processing, including laser additive manufacturing and laser shock peening (LSP). His team develops a unique selective laser sintering (SLS) process for additive manufacturing of ceramic materials, and LSP to improve mechanical properties of ceramic materials as well as irradiation and stress corrosion cracking resistance of stainless steels.  His group is the inventor of a patented high-temperature LSP process and system for ceramics.

Bai received his Ph.D. from Imperial College London, UK (advisor: Prof. Bill Lee), and was a Postdoc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (advisor: Prof. Ian Robertson). 

Honors and Awards

Global Ambassador Award, American Ceramic Society, 2023. 

Global Star Award, Engineering Ceramics Division, American Ceramic Society, 2022. 

Faculty Research & Creative Activity Award, UNL College of Engineering, 2021

Journal of the American Ceramic Society’s top cited article, 2020-2021. 

International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing: outstanding contribution during 2020.

Journal of the American Ceramic Society’s top cited article, 2018-2019.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Faculty Development Grant, 2018 .

Honoree of College of Engineering Research Celebration, UNL, 2018, 2020.  

Richard Brook Prize for Best PhD in Ceramics in the UK, 2012 

Guastv Eirich Award, European Centre for Refractories, 2012

Tony Evans Prize for Best Ceramics Thesis, Imperial College London, 2012

Lee Family Scholarship, Imperial College London, 2008-2011

Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award, Tsinghua University, 2008