Education

• Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, 2006
• M.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, 2000
• B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, 1998

Courses Taught

• Nano Materials and Mechanics
• Nano Scale Energy Transport and Conversion
• Introduction to Micro / Nano Fabrication
• Semiconductor Fabrication
• Intro / Intermediate / Advanced Materials
• Intro / Intermediate / Advanced Mechanics of Materials
• Continuum Mechanics
• Engineering Measurements
• Manufacturing
• Senior Design

Senior Research Scholar

Interdisciplinary Research Center for Advanced Materials (IRC-AM)

Research Areas

• Renewable Energy
• Materials
• Mechanics of Materials
• MEMS / Nanotechnology

Representative Publications

1. S. Alaie, D. F. Goettler, M. Su, Z. C. Leseman, C. M. Reinke, and I. El-Kady, "Thermal transport in phononic crystals and the observation of coherent phonon scattering at room temperature," Nat. Commun., vol. 6, 2015.
2. P. E. Hopkins et al., "Reduction in the thermal conductivity of single crystalline silicon by phononic crystal patterning," Nano Lett., vol. 11, no. 1, 2011.
3. M. F. Su, R. H. Olsson-III, Z. C. Leseman, and I. El-Kady, "Realization of a phononic crystal operating at gigahertz frequencies," Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 96, 2010.
4. F. Liu, S. Alaie, Z. C. Leseman, and M. Hossein-Zadeh, "Sub-pg mass sensing and measurement with an optomechanical oscillator," Opt. Express, vol. 21, no. 17, pp. 762–768, 2013.
5. J. L. Braun et al., "Size effects on the thermal conductivity of amorphous silicon thin films," Phys. Rev. B, vol. 93, no. 14, p. 140201, 2016.
6. Z. C. Leseman, S. P. Carlson, and T. J. Mackin, "Experimental measurements of the strain energy release rate for stiction-failed microcantilevers using a single-cantilever beam peel test," J. Microelectromechanical Syst., vol. 16, no. 1, 2007.
7. M. A. Atwater, J. Phillips, and Z. C. Leseman, "The effect of powder sintering on the palladium-catalyzed formation of carbon nanofibers from ethylene-oxygen mixtures," Carbon N. Y., vol. 48, no. 7, 2010.
8. K. Abbas, S. Alaie, and Z. C. Leseman, "Design and characterization of a low temperature gradient and large displacement thermal actuators for in situ mechanical testing of nanoscale materials," J. Micromechanics Microengineering, vol. 22, no. 12, p. 125027, 2012.
9. M. A. Atwater, J. Phillips, and Z. C. Leseman, "Formation of carbon nanofibers and thin films catalyzed by palladium in ethylene?hydrogen mixtures," J. Phys. Chem. C, vol. 114, no. 13, 2010.
10. K. Abbas et al., "Nanoscale size effects on the mechanical properties of platinum thin films and cross-sectional grain morphology," J. Micromechanics Microengineering, vol. 26, no. 1, p. 15007, 2016.