Sustainability
Building the green materials of the future
The development of sustainable energy sources is one of the grand challenges of modern society. Novel materials drive our technological advances, for example in the areas of batteries, solar power, or nuclear fusion. The combination of quantum mechanics with powerful supercomputers allows us to design these materials at the atomic level in a virtual laboratory, reducing the costs and accelerating the process.
Our research explores complex materials including superconductors, semiconductors, and alloys, with potential applications in technologies ranging from jet engines to solar cells. As recent examples, we have investigated the transport [Nature Physics], recombination [Advanced Materials], and optical [Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters] properties of hybrid perovskite solar cells, we have explained the origin of unconventional superconductivity in an incommensurate phase of bismuth [Science Advances], and we have studied the optical absorption features of novel materials for use as transparent conductors [Physical Review B].
