Prof. Song Xiaoyan's team has studied the stabilities of nanocrystalline grains and phases in the multicomponent alloys and the mechanisms of performance regulation. This has formed an academic approach that combines "basic research on stability of nanomaterials" with "engineering applications".

The team has developed a series of original technologies in the field of nanomaterials. As an example, techniques of high-strength, wear-and-corrosion-resistant cemented carbide materials have been adopted by enterprises in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, generating close collaborations of university, enterprise and users and realizing amajor breakthrough from basic research to engineering applications. The team has developed more than ten kinds of high-performance cemented carbide industrial products that can be continuously supplied. Such advanced materials are especially important for applications in aerospace equipment, drilling and mining tools, and precise manufacturing.

WC based composite powders with controllable particle size synthesized by in-situ reactions (the first three figures, where the red font is the average particle size of the powder) and agglomerated particles prepared by spray granulation technique (where the red font is the particle size range).