Can't have enough books on Stat Mech

Cambridge University Press recently published "Statistical Thermodynamics and Stochastic Kinetics. An Introduction for Engineers" by Yiannis Kaznessis. The book focuses on molecular explanations of entropy and energy, in case anyone needs them.

Cococcioni Wins NSF CAREER Award

Professor Cococcioni has recently received a National Science Foundation's CAREER award. This award is conferred to junior faculty members to recognize and support outstanding research activities and their integration with excellent educational programs. Matteo's project, entitled "Efficient DFT-based computational approach for correlated systems", proposes to develop, validate and disseminate a flexible and versatile Density Functional Theory - based computational scheme to perform ab initio calculations on correlated and non correlated systems at a higher level of accuracy, yet at approximately the same computational cost of current DFT functionals.

Strongly correlated systems (e.g., many transition metal and rare earths compounds) are involved in applications of unquestionable scientific and technological relevance, including homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, solar cells, sensors, actuators, energy conversion and storage devices, spintronics, superconductivity, etc. Available ab initio computational approaches are either not accurate or not efficient enough to treat correlated systems of realistic complexity. The research work Matteo proposes consists in developing corrective terms to the DFT total energy that, inspired by the Hubbard model, will be designed to act on a selected subgroup of the electrons of a system (typically, strongly localized ones) and to reintroduce specific aspects of the many-body character of the electronic wave function, normally lost in common approximate functionals. If successful, this research will define a new paradigm to perform ab initio calculations, whose unique combination of accuracy and numerical efficiency will disclose unprecedented possibilities to effectively use computational modeling to control the properties of materials in this class through design, and to efficiently screen and optimize optimal candidates for target applications.

Imaging 'Invisible' Dopant Atoms

Nanometer-scale semiconductors that contain a few intentionally added impurity atoms can provide new opportunities for controlling electronic properties. However, since the physics of these materials depends strongly on the exact arrangement of the impurities, or dopants, inside the structure, and many impurities of interest cannot be observed with currently available imaging techniques, new methods are needed to determine their location.

Mkhoyan group in collaboration with David Norris's group from ETH Zurich combined electron energy loss spectroscopy with annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (ADF-STEM) to image individual Mn impurities inside ZnSe nanocrystals. Thus, a general path is demonstrated for atomic-scale imaging and identification of individual dopants in a variety of semiconductor nano structures. The paper was published in Nano Letters ( A.A. Gunawan et al., Nano Lett. 11, 5553 (2011) ) and highlighted in February 2012 issue of Nature Chemistry.

Related: http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v4/n2/full/nchem.1258.html

Michael Tsapatsis elected AAAS Fellow

Michael Tsapatsis was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by the AAAS Council. Each year the Council elects members whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished."

Sai Madhukar Reddy wins Best Poster Award

Sai Madhukar Reddy, a CEMS graduate student working with Beth Stadler in Electrical and Computer Engineering, won a Best Poster Award at the Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM) conference in Scottsdale, AZ. Madhukar's poster was entitled "Towards Epitaxial Fe1-xGax / GaAs Structures via Electrochemistry for Spintronics Applications" and describes his work demonstrating an ability to electrochemically deposit epitaxial Fe-Ga thin films on GaAs substrates. The work also enables one to tailor the film texture to suit the application in hand, likely in the areas of semiconductor spintronics and MEMS/NEMS devices.

20 Recent CEMS Graduates and Postdocs Start as Faculty Around the World from MIT to University of Science and Technology in China

One of CEMS missions is to educate the next generation of chemical engineering and materials science faculty. Towards this goal, 20 recent graduate students and postdocs of CEMS faculty started their careers as professors at universities across the United States and the globe. Eight of the 20 will be teaching in Brazil, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. Click on "Read More" for a complete list. We wish all of them good luck in their new positions.

CEMS alumni starting faculty jobs between 2009-2011, along with their former CEMS advisor and their new affiliation:

• William Tisdale (Aydil, Norris & Zhu, Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Michael Baldea (Daoutidis, Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Austin)
• Randy Ewoldt (Macosko, Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois)
• Bryan Boudouris (Frisbie & Hillmyer, Chemical Engineering, Purdue)
• Wei Fan (Tsapatsis, Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Paul Dauenhauer (Schmidt, Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Bill Phillip (Cussler & Hillmyer, Chemical Engineering, Notre Dame)
• Mark Snyder (Tsapatsis, Chemical Engineering, Lehigh University)
• Sunho Choi (Tsapatsis, Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University)
• Dongxia Liu, (Bhan and Tsapatsis, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Maryland)
• Kara Maki (Kumar, School of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology)
• Prajna Dhar (Zasadzinski, Chemical Engineering, University of Kansas)

• Yanwei Wang (Dorfman, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Soochow Univ., China)
• Joao Justo (Wentzcovitch, Electrical Engineering, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)
• Zhongqing Wu (Wentzcovitch, Geosciences, University of Science and Technology of China)
• Han Hsu (Wentzcovitch, Physics, National Central University, Taiwan)
• Shingo Kobayashi (Macosko & Hillmyer, Yamagata University, Japan)
• Jungkyu Choi (Tsapatsis, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Korea University)
• Shengxiang Ji (Macosko & Hoye, Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
• Sami El-Khatib, (Leighton, Physics, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)

CEMS group reports breakthrough on zeolite films

A CEMS team described the synthesis of suspensions containing zeolite nanosheets (precisely structured porous layers, few atoms thick and thousand atoms wide). Due to the molecular sized pores crossing the film thickness, the nanosheets can act as selective flakes at the molecular level. High performance membranes were synthesized by simply packing these selective flakes. The paper was published on the October 7 issue of Science (K Varoon et al, Science, 2011, 334, 72 (DOI: 10.1126/science.1208891)). A commentary can be found here .

Related: http://gemini.cems.umn.edu/research/tsapatsis/publications.php

High-Throughput Zeolite Membranes

In an invited Perspective (Science, 334, p.767 (2011)), Michael Tsapatsis discusses an emerging new methodology to fabricate ultrathin (few nanometer thick) molecular sieve membranes. This technology appears now feasible due to several notable developments demonstrated by his research team and collaborators: control of preferential orientation (Science, 300, p. 456 (2003)) , elimination of grain boundary defects (Science, 325, p. 590 (2009)) and synthesis of nanosheet seed crystals (Science, 333, p. 72 (2011)). Commercialization of this technology could lead to significant energy savings in the chemical process industry.

A recent talk describing the development of this technology and challenges ahead can be found at: https://umconnect.umn.edu/p84789306/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

Bharat Jalan Joins Faculty

Bharat Jalan joins the faculty this fall as an Assistant Professor. Bharat received his PhD in Materials Science from UCSB, where he worked with Susanne Stemmer. His research is focused on the growth of oxide thin films using the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) approach with a goal to bring oxide materials quality to a new level of perfection needed for both fundamental science and for application in electronic devices.

Ben Hackel Joins Faculty

Dr. Ben Hackel joined our department this fall as an Assistant Professor. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biological Chemistry from MIT, followed by a postdoc in Radiology at Stanford University. Ben's research program will quantitatively elucidate the processes that dictate molecular biophysics and recognition, biological transport, and imaging technology to create innovations in protein engineering and molecular imaging.

CEMS 2011 Graduating Seniors

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science would like to congratulate the undergraduate Class of 2011.  We wish them the very best in their future endeavors.  Please click the link below to download the image.

Class Picture

CEMS Outstanding TA's

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials is happy to announce the winners of the 2010-2011 CEMS Outstanding TA Awards. These students were nominated by instructors for their excellent performance as a TA.

Shown above with the Directors of Graduate Studies, Dan Frisbie and Yiannis Kaznessis are:

• Chris Thurber - CHEN 4502: Chemical Engineering Process Design II
• Eric Vandre - CHEN 8101: Fluid Mechanics I: Change, Deformation, Equations of Flow
• Katherine Volzing - CHEN 3401: Junior Chemical Engineering Lab
• Aloysius Gunawan - MATS 5517: Electron Microscopy
• Victor Lai - MATS 4400: Senior Design Project