Prof. Dallas Trinkle in Materials Science Has a Research Opening for a Graduate Student

Prof. Dallas Trinkle in Materials Science has an opening for a theoretical / computational graduate student for a PhD research project. His group uses and develops new computational materials modeling focusing on electronic structure methods (DFT) to study defects in materials, and build larger scale models using that information. This project involves development of theory and building a computational implementation. Students with interest in condensed matter or materials theory, and computational methods are encouraged to contact Prof. Trinkle for more information.

Mass transport using Green functions in crystals -- Mass transport in materials controls everything from ionic conductivity to processing of nanostructured materials to the development of advanced structural metals. Transport occurs through the motion of defects: interstitial defects for light elements, or by coupled motion with vacancies for substitutional solutes. In general, such motion is characterized as a correlated random walk. The problem becomes more complex for non-dilute concentration of solutes, or in the case of ordered crystals with two elements. A new student would build on previous work in the group using Green function methods for the correlated motion of vacancies, and expand it to incorporate antisite defects. This research combines the development of theoretical techniques along with numerical implementation to make quantitatively accurate predictions for real materials from metallic alloys to battery materials to intermetallics and mixed semiconductors. The theoretical work would be implemented into the python framework currently under development for mass transport.