Dr. Yongkang Wang
Yongkang Wang studied Micro-Nano Engineering at Southeast University in China. In 2021, he joined the group of Prof. Dr. Mischa Bonn and Dr. Yuki Nagata at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, where he conducted his Ph.D. research. He earned his Ph.D. in 2024 from the University of Amsterdam, focusing on water’s behavior at electrified interfaces and under nanoscale confinement using surface-specific heterodyne-detected sum-frequency generation (HD-SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. Following his Ph.D., he continued his research as a postdoctoral fellow in the same group and was later promoted to group leader in the Department of Molecular Spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research that same year.
Research interests
The Nanoscale Water Research Group investigates the molecular structure and arrangement of water and aqueous ions at interfaces on the nanoscale using advanced surface-specific nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy, particularly Heterodyne-Detected Sum-Frequency Generation (HD-SFG) spectroscopy. Our research focuses on how Coulombic and hydrogen-bonding interactions shape water’s behavior at aqueous interfaces and in confined environments. We explore a diverse range of systems, including mineral/water and polymer/water interfaces, atomically flat two-dimensional material/water interfaces, and electrochemical electrode/water interfaces. Additionally, we use spectroscopy to study the structure and transport of water and aqueous ions within one-dimensional nanotubes and two-dimensional nanochannels. By uncovering fundamental interfacial phenomena—such as surface chemistry, interfacial water structure and reorganization, electric double-layer (EDL) formation, and water behavior under nanoscale confinement—we aim to advance the molecular-level understanding of nanoscale water.