In today's world, material selection has become one of the critical parameters in every field important to humanity, from quantum technologies to energy applications. The diversity of materials available and the advancements in fabrication technologies provide a vast pool for searching for optimal materials. However, it is impossible to explore such a wide variety of materials solely through trial-and-error or predictions in the laboratory. Computational solid-state and materials science, operating on an interdisciplinary platform and aided by popular artificial intelligence algorithms in recent years, offers a more cost-effective alternative to this problem.
In this talk, basic computational materials science techniques will be discussed, followed by examples of applications studied within the speaker’s research group.
Hande Toffoli graduated from the Department of Physics at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1999. In the same year, she was admitted to the Department of Physics at Cornell University to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Solid-State Physics. After completing her Ph.D. in 2005, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Italy for one year. In 2007, she returned to Turkey and joined the Department of Physics at METU, where she has been serving as a faculty member ever since.