Atomistic Simulations of irradiation-induced Phenomena

The  group is focused on multi-scale atomistic simulations of materials with particular focus on nanosystems. Specifically, we carry out calculations of the mechanical, magnetic and opto-electonic properties of materials at various levels of sophistication  ranging from time-dependent density functional theory to empirical potential molecular dynamics and kinetic Monte-Carlo methods. We also study effects of ion and electron irradiation on solids.

Main topics of research

• Effects of ion and electron irradiation on two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides. 
• Development of the Ehrenfest dynamics (time-dependent density functional theory combined with classical dynamics for the nuclei) to study irradiation effects in solids
• Electronic and optical properties of 2D materials and their heterostructures 
• Energy and atom storage in nanostructures
• Mechanical properties of BN-metal nanocomposites
• Properties of confined and free-standing atomic chains 

Publications, presentations and selected recognitions

• 90+ invited and keynote talks at international conferences/workshops (among them APS, AVS, MRS, EMRS meetings, Gordon Research Conferences, CAARI, COSIRES)
• 275+ publications in refereed journals cited 24,500+ (Web of Science) / 34,400+ (Google Scholar) times   Google Scholar Profile
• H-factor 79 (Web of Science), 87 (Google Scholar)
• HZDR Research Award (Forschungspreis), 2017
• Highly Cited Researcher (Physics) from Clarivate Analytics, 2017-2022
• American Physical Society "Outstanding Referee" 2018

Group members:

• Dr. Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl
• Dr. Silvan Kretschmer
• M. Sc. Mitisha Jain
• M.Sc. Prosun Santra
• Dr. Rico Friedrich (also Head of an independent group at TU Dresden).
• Tom Barnowsky

Former group members:

• Dr. Francis Davies
• Dr. Sadegh Ghaderzadeh
• M. Sc. Thomas Joseph
• M. Sc. Yidan Wei
• Dr. Xuemei Zhang
• Dr. Ilja Chepkasov
• Dr. Karthikeyan Jeyakumar 
• Dr. Seyed Hashemi-Petrudi 
• Vladimir Ladygin
• Michael Maslov

The group works in collaborations with the experimental groups at the Ion Beam Center (HZDR), and also has numerous external coworkers in Germany (University of Köln, University of Ulm, University of Duisburg-Essen, Technical University of Dresden), Finland (Aalto University, University of Helsinki), Japan (AIST, Osaka University) and Denmark (DTU).

Reprints of recent publications of the group leader can be found  here.