Dear Colleagues and Students,
You are cordially invited to UNAM Nanocolloquium seminars focusing on advancements in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. The seminars bring us the most recent developments in these exciting fields. The talk will be presented by Professor Leeor Kronik*
Title: Understanding Molecular and Hybrid Crystals from First Principles
Date: December 14, 2018 (Friday)
Time: 16:00**
Place: UNAM Conference Hall
ABSTRACT:
Molecular crystals are crystalline solids composed of molecules bound together by
relatively weak intermolecular interactions, typically consisting of van der Waals interactions
and/or hydrogen bonds. Hybrid crystals combine molecular units and covalent/ionic networks.
Both classes of crystals play an important role in many areas of science and engineering,
ranging from biology and medicine to mechanics and electronics. Therefore, much effort has
been dedicated to understanding their structure and properties.
Predicting the behavior of such materials from first principles is highly desired for
understanding their unique properties and for allowing rational design of novel materials and
structures. Preferably, we would like to obtain such understanding from density functional
theory (DFT), because the relative computational simplicity afforded by DFT allows us to
attack realistic, experimentally accessible problems. Unfortunately, despite many other
successes, DFT has traditionally struggled with useful prediction of properties of crystals that
contain weakly-bound units.
Here, I will show how state-of-the-art DFT approaches allow us to overcome these
limitations, quantitatively. I will focus on our recent progress in explaining and even predicting
important classes of collective effects, i.e., phenomena that the individual units comprising the
crystal do not exhibit, but arise through their interaction. Specifically, I will address unique
structural, mechanical, electrical, and optical properties of both biogenic and synthetic crystals,
with an emphasis on constructive interaction between theory and experiment.
About the Speaker:
Prof. Kronik obtained his BSc in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D. in Physical Electronics both at Tel Aviv University. After that he was post-doctoral Rothschild and Fulbright fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, and post-doctoral Fellow of the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Since December 2002 he is faculty member in the Department of Materials and Interfaces at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Presently he is full professor and department chair. His research fields include first principles calculations, density functional theory, many-body perturbation theory, organic electronics, organic-inorganic hybrids, molecular electronics, and molecular solids with focus on understanding unique properties and behavior of materials and interfaces. His group is actively engaged in prediction and interpretation of novel experiments, as well as in the development of formalism and methodology. He has received numerous awards, such as the Krill Prize of the Wolf Foundation for Excellence in Scientific Research, the Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the Israel Chemical Society, and the Excellence in Research Award of the Israel Vacuum Society.
*Weizmann Institute of Science
**Refreshment will be served at 15:40