Michael Engel attends the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Diego to present present his research and promote our department of Chemical and Biological Engineering of FAU. The department has an evening reception and participates in the recruitment fair.
Surface strain can help increase the performance of nanocatalysts, and we have designed a new strategy to stabilize the surface strain in materials. The groups of Yimo Han and Matthew R. Jones at Rice University synthesized nanoparticles and used four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) to capture an electron diffraction pattern at each scan position, which produces detailed structural information. Molecular dynamics simulations of Alberto Leonardi investigated the inhibition of dislocation nucleation due to reduced shear stress at corners.
Read about the research here:
Chuqiao Shi, Zhihua Cheng, Alberto Leonardi, Yao Yang, Michael Engel, Matthew R. Jones, Yimo Han
Preserving Surface Strain in Nanocatalysts via Morphology Control
Science Advances 10, eadp378 (2024)
Michael Engel visited the Computational Statistical Physics lab of Masaharu Isobe at Nagoya Institute of Technology University from July 4 to July 17. NITech is a partner university of FAU in Japan. Discussions advanced our understanding of the hard disc problems, in particular using event-chain methods and Voronoi decomposition.
This year we went canoeing on the river Pegnitz near Vorra. Great fun, including some excitement, and a relaxing dinner and evening walk afterwards. See you again next year!
Nydia Varela-Rosales defended her thesis and obtained a PhD in Physics. The title of her thesis is: “Computational Design and Thermodynamic Stability of Aperiodic Crystals and their Approximants”.
Congratulations!
For the time June to November 2024 Praveen Bommineni from the National Institute of Technology Warangal (India) is conducting research in our group. A focus of joint research is colloidal crystallization in confinement. The research is funded through the guest research program of FAU and the CRC 1411. Praveen has been a postdoctoral research in the group and returning for a sabbatical.
Welcome to Erlangen!
The lab published two in-depth overview articles in the field of mesostructure formation:
Nanocrystal Assemblies: Current Advances and Open Problems
This review appeared in ACS Nano and is coauthored by 42 authors. The paper grew from discussions on these topics among the participants of the workshop “Nanoparticle Assemblies: A New Form of Matter with Classical Structure and Quantum Function”, held at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP), Santa Barbara/CA, USA, from March 27 to May 19, 2023. This study is a broader-view study linking different scales, fundamentals, and methods, emphasizing open problems to inspire and push forward research in the field.
Mesomorphology of Clathrate Hydrates from Molecular Ordering
This perspective appeared in the Journal of Chemical Physics. The paper discusses the coupling of molecular ordering with the mesoscales, including (i) the emergence of porous patterns as a combined factor from the walk over the free energy landscape and 3D competitive nucleation and growth and (ii) the role of molecular attachment rates in crystallization–diffusion models that allow predicting the timescale of pore sealing. It discusses the use of discrete models (molecular dynamics) to build continuum models (phase field models, crystallization laws, and transport phenomena) to predict multiscale manifestations at a feasible computational cost.
Jyoti joined the group as a PhD student. She will be conducting research on the computational design of nanomaterials. Welcome!
Harsha Namdeo joined the group as a PhD student. She will be conducting research on understanding interactions and self-assembly behavior of nanoparticles. Welcome!
For the month of April, Mike Widom from Carnegie Mellon University and Marek Mihalkovic from Slovak Academy of Sciences are conducting research in our group. A focus of joint research is on complex order and statistical mechanics. The research is funded through the guest research program of FAU.
Welcome to Erlangen!