Received Ph.D. in Optics in 1993 from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He was then a postdoc researcher an Alexander-von-Humboldt fellow in the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany and later a JSPS research fellow and research associate in Institute of Laser Engineerig,Osaka University, Japan. He joined the Institute of Physics, CAS, in Beijing in 2001. He has been a distinguished professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University since 2007. He published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals (including 39 in PRL, PNAS, Nat. Comm.) with ~6000 citations and H-index 40. He is a fellow of American Physical Society.

Research Interests:

1. Relativistic laser-plasma interactions and their applications in advanced particle accelerators and radiation production (from terahertz to gamma-rays)

2. Laser-driven high energy density physics and laboratory astrophysics

3. Physics of wave-particle interactions related to inertial confined fusion4. Kinetic simulation methods such as particle-in-cell simulation, Fokker-Planck simulation

1. A. Pukhov, Z. M. Sheng, and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, “Particle acceleration in relativistic laser channels”, Phys. Plasmas 6, 2847-2854 (1999).

2. Z.-M. Sheng, Y. Sentoku, K. Mima, J. Zhang, W. Yu, and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, “Angular distributions of fast electrons, ions, and bremsstrahlung x/gamma-rays in intense laser interaction with solid targets”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5340 (2000).

3. Z.-M. Sheng, K. Mima, Y. Sentoku, M. S. Jovanovic, T. Taguchi, J. Zhang, and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, “Stochastic heating and acceleration of electrons in colliding laser fields in plasmas”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 055004 (2002).

4. Z. -M. Sheng, K. Mima, Y. Sentoku, K. Nishihara, and J. Zhang, “Generation of high-amplitude plasma wave for particle acceleration by cross-modulated laser wake-field”, Phys. Plasmas 9, 3147 (2002).

5. Y. T. Li, J. Zhang, Z. M. Sheng, H. Teng, T. J. Liang, X. Y. Peng, X. Lu, Y. J. Li, “Spatial distribution of high-energy electron emission from water plasmas produced by femtosecond laser pulses”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 165002 (2003).

6. Z.-M. Sheng, K. Mima, J. Zhang, and H. Sanuki, “Emission of electromagnetic pulses from laser wakefields through linear mode conversion”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 095003 (2005).

7. H.-C. Wu, Z.-M. Sheng, Q.-J. Zhang, Y. Cang and J. Zhang, “Manipulating Ultrashort Intense Laser Pulses by Plasma Bragg Gratings”, Phys. Plasmas 12, 113103 (2005).

8. S. M. Weng, Z. M. Sheng, M. Q. He, J. Zhang, P. A. Norreys, M. Sherlock, and A. P. L. Robinson, “Plasma currents and electron distribution functions under a DC electric field of arbitrary strength”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 185001 (2008).

9. X. Q. Yan, C. Lin, Z. M. Sheng, Z.Y. Guo, B.C.Liu, Y.R. Lu, J.X. Fang, J.E. Chen, “High current and monoenergetic proton beams generated by a circularly-polarized laser pulse in the phase-stable acceleration (PSA) regime”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 135003 (2008).

10. S. Mondal, V. Narayanan, W. J. Ding, A. D. Lad, B. Hao, S. Ahmad, W. M. Wang, Z. M. Sheng, S. Sengupta, P. K. Kaw, A. Das, and G. R. Kumar, “Direct observation of turbulent magnetic fields in hot, dense laser produced plasmas”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.109, 8011 (2012).

11. L. M. Chen, W. C. Yan, D. Z. Li, Z. D. Hu, L. Zhang, W. M. Wang, N. Hafz, J. Y. Mao, K. Huang, Y. Ma, J. R. Zhao, J. L. Ma, Y. T. Li, X. Lu, Z. M. Sheng, Z. Y. Wei, J. Gao, J. Zhang, “Bright betatron x-ray radiation from a laser-driven-clustering gas target”, Scientific Reports 3, 1912 (2013).

12. F. Y. Li, Z. M. Sheng, Y. Liu, J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, W. B. Mori, W. Lu, and J. Zhang, “Dense attosecond electron sheets from laser wakefields using an up-ramp density transition”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 135002 (2013).