We are pleased to welcome Prof. Dr. Christopher Stein as a new member of our Cluster of Excellence.
Since November 1st 2022, he has been an integral part of TUM and at the same time also of e-conversion. He takes over from Prof. Dr. Karsten Reuter as an Associate Professor.
After his PhD and postdoctoral position at ETH Zurich, a postdoc at UC Berkley followed.
As a junior research group leader in theoretical physics, he spent the last time at the University of Duisburg-Essen before joining us at TUM with his focus on energy materials:
Lifetime-shortening processes in energy materials
By energy materials we mean batteries and catalysts in particular. These are used in many different ways today and are an important building block for sustainable energy supply. Powerful and durable batteries and catalysts are the key to responsible use of the resources at our disposal.
The complicated atomic structure of these materials is a challenge for their theoretical description and the simulation of the processes taking place. In particular, processes that shorten the lifetime (finite charge cycles or catalyst deactivation) are often difficult to identify with theoretical models.
With effective cluster-embedding models, we will simulate building blocks of these materials and explore the chemical space of given compositions with large-canon Monte Carlo methods. With new, efficient semiempirical methods, we can perform approximate electron structure calculations that can give us insight into the structure and reactivity. We then detect the structure-reactivity relationships with statistical methods (machine learning) and in this way try to identify possible life-time shortening processes. (Image: https://www.ch.nat.tum.de/theochem/forschung/energiematerialien/)
If you are interested or have any questions, you can contact Prof. Dr. Christopher Stein here.