Frank Ortmann
Alessio Gagliardi
With this Bavarian expression for “welcome” we happily introduce two outstanding scientists as new members of our cluster: Prof. Alessio Gagliardi and Prof. Frank Ortmann.
Both professors are theoretical scientists and use mathematical simulations to investigate materials for energy devices. This way they provide their colleagues from experimental science with important data and understanding about the physics behind the systems and potential problems. So the experimentalists can optimize their set-ups already before the often time-consuming and expensive fabrication process and probing.
Frank Ortmann just came to the TU München from TU Dresden in 2020. At the Department of Chemistry, he is professor for “Theoretical Methods in Spectroscopy”. His research focus is on various materials on the atomic scale as for example organic semiconductors for photovoltaics. By developing models for excitonic effects and the electron-phonon interaction, Frank Ortmann and his team describe the material’s electronic, optical and transport properties, including time dynamics, charge and spin transport, and optical spectroscopy. In this fundamental research so-called “ab initio” methods from quantum physics play an important role.
Alessio Gagliardi is professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at TU München. His research is partially connected with the work of Prof. Ortmann but his methods go to larger scales and are more device oriented. With his group “Simulation of Nanosystems for Energy Conversion” he develops numeric models to predict the behavior of new kinds of solar devices like organic and perovskite based solar cells. Furthermore, the scientists use machine learning techniques for the identification of new materials with high performance for electrochemical systems (nanostructured cathodes) and solar devices (new perovskite crystals and organic semiconductors).
Pictures: TU München