Patently smart tools
"We are able to simulate the properties of solids, interfaces, and surfaces for a wide range of materials classes, including ceramics, semiconductors, and metals, with our premier density functional theory quantum mechanical code – CASTEP."
- Professor Matt Probert, School of Physics, Engineering and Technology
Such relationships are mutually beneficial and allow our industrial partners to tap into the research skills and facilities at CEEM, while enabling our teams to gain significant insights into needs of cutting edge, global technology companies who want to make a step change towards more energy efficient devices and materials.
“What makes CEEM different is the way we use first principle modelling – which allows us to simulate a wide range of material proprieties including energetics, atomic structure, vibrational, and electronic response properties – and then combine it with bespoke, experimental techniques to fabricate, test and provide proof of concept,” Professor Probert added.
With more than 90 patents filed worldwide that cite CASTEP in their applications, the CEEM methodology is attracting increasing attention from industrial research partners. While much of our work is with often rare and exotic materials that we manipulate at the nanoscale to improve its energy conversion properties, our recent work on three readily available, cheap and easy to combine elements, has the potential to be a game changer.