Pierre Darancet

Pierre Darancet is a scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials who studies the optical, electronic, and thermal properties of quantum materials, nanomaterials, and interfaces. His research focuses on developing atomistically- and quantum-mechanically-informed theories of macroscopic optoelectronic properties of complex materials, as well as on developing efficient computational approaches to simulate experimental probes (time-resolved spectroscopy, transport, and scanning probe measurements). He is a fellow at the Northwestern Argonne Institute for Science and Engineering.

Open positions

We currently have several open postdoctoral positions on the theory and simulation of optomechanical, electrothermal, and electromechanical effects. Please contact me if interested. 

Education and Professional Preparation

• M.Sc., Applied Physics, Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (2005)
• M.Sc., Physics, Université Paul Sabatier (2005)
• Ph.D, Physics, Université Joseph Fourier (2008); Advisors: Drs. Didier Mayou and Valerio Olevano 
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2008 – 2012);  Advisor: Prof. Jeffrey B. Neaton
• Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Columbia University (2012 – 2014); Advisors: Profs. Andrew J. Millis & Chris A. Marianetti

Awards

• Ph.D. Fellowship, French Ministry of Education, Research and Technology, MENRT (2005-2008);
• Graduated with Honors (1st class), Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (2005);
• Impact Argonne Award for Extraordinary Effort, November 2020
• Argonne Physical Sciences Engineering, Employee of the Month, December 2020
• Argonne Physical Sciences Engineering, Employee of the Month, March 2021
• Argonne Physical Sciences and Engineering, Excellence Award in the Programmatic Scientific Achievement category, September 2022

Research Topics

• First-principles modeling of charge, heat, and energy transport in nanoscale materials and heterogeneous interfaces.
• Optoelectronic, optomechanical, and electro-thermal properties of materials
• Method development in quantum and semi-classical  dynamics 
• Inverse Design and AI-guided experimentation

Current/previous projects

• Center for Nanoscale Materials, Theory and Modeling group (2014-present): Code development, electronic structure and transport simulations of nano and energy materials, support of external users as part of the DOE NSRC program. 
• Department of Energy, Office of Science ​“Threadwork: A Transformative Co-Design Approach to Materials and Computer Architecture Research” (2021-present): Development of a co-design framework for simulation of plasmonic interconnects. 
• Department of Energy, Scientific User Facilities ​“A Digital Twin for In Silico Time- Resolved Experiments” (2021-present)
• Department of Energy, Scientific User Facilities ​“The Atomic Quantum Information Surface Science (AQuISS) Lab” (2021-present)
• National Science Foundation: Northwestern University MRSEC, IRG1 ​“Reconfigurability in Mixed-Dimensional Heterojunctions” (2015 - 2023): Atomistic simulations of mixed-dimensional heterojunctions (MDHJ). Development of density functionals for MDHJ and extractions of materials descriptors for highly heterogeneous materials.  
• Argonne LDRD program: 
  • “Managing Emission and Thermal Absorption”  2016-2018: Development of a coupled Boltzmann transport equation framework for simulations of time-dependent phonon bottlenecks. 
  • “AI Robotic Platform for Solution-Processable Materials” 2019: Development of the polybot robotic platform for autonomous synthesis and processing of solution-processable materials. 
  • “Atomic Synthesis of Artificial Lattices for Quantum Simulation”  2019-2021: Development of a high throughput simulation framework for artificial lattice modeling, including tight-binding topological invariants, Muffin-tin models of molecular absorption, density functional simulations, and inverse design modules.   
  • “AI guided metastable phase diagram of materials”  2019-2021: Development of an high throughput framework for the identification of metastable phases and the construction of metastable phase diagrams of materials.  
  • “AI Robotics for Solution-Processable Materials” 2020: Development of the polybot software environment for autonomous synthesis and processing of solution-processable materials. 
  • “Exploring metastable metal-nanocarbon composites for enhanced electrical and thermal conductivity” 2021
  • “Transport modeling of C-in-Cu/Al nanoscale inclusions”  2021
  • “Inverse Microstructure Design for Enhanced Thermal and Electrical Conductivity”

Research News and Highlights

• Large rectification in molecular heterojunctions
• A unique probe of thermal transport in perovskites
• Anisotropic structural dynamics in monolayer crystals
• Ultrathin and ultrafast: scientists pioneer new technique for two-dimensional material analysis
• Molecular charge density waves in a single layer fermion system
• New autonomous discovery platform built in the Center for Nanoscale Materials.
• Devising a data platform for autonomous discovery
• Borophane: hydrogenation of atomic-thick layers of boron
• Less than a nanometer thick, stronger and more versatile than steel
• Quenching Defect Photoluminescence in Monolayer MoS2
• Machine learning facilitates construction of metastable phase diagrams
• Scientists use machine learning to accelerate materials discovery
• Scientists construct novel quantum testbed one atom at a time

Publications

Google Scholar page

Codes

• Polybot: An AI-Integrated Robotic Software Environment (ANL-SF-21-142)
• Non-equilibrium Phonon Dynamics code
• Artificial Lattice workflow
• Github Profile

Data

• Toposwarm: Dataset of topological low-symmetry organic compounds, as identified by a high throughput framework based on tight-binding calculations on neutral compounds.  DOI: 10.18126/u1jz-bx0a
• Electronic Structure of Transition-Metal Phthalocyanine (MPc) Molecules and Mixed-Dimensional MPc-MoS2 Heterojunctions DOI: 10.18126/xkru-gan1 
• Synthesis of borophane polymorphs via hydrogenation of borophene DOI: 10.18126/oizk-5a9l 
• Dataset for SiO2 polymorphs using metaGGA functional DOI:10.18126/8wuy-z519

Current group members

• N/A 

Past group members and visitors

• Connor Blake, (Metcalf Fellow, Argonne National Laboratory), June – September 2023 Linkedin, Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Undergraduate student, Department of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago.
• Qunfei Zhou, (Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory), February 2018 – July 2023 Linkedin, Scholar Page.  Position prior to joining the group: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Kentucky. Position upon leaving the group: Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Kansas.
• Jack Crewse, (Postdoctoral fellow, Argonne National Laboratory), July 2022 – September 2023 Linkedin, Scholar Page Position prior to joining the group: Graduate student, Missouri University of Science and Technology. Position upon leaving the group: Intellectual Property and Technology Development Manager, Polsky Center, University of Chicago.
• Anubhab Haldar, (Graduate Student, Boston University, co-supervised with Prof. Sahar Sharifzadeh), June 2018 – June 2023 Linkedin, Scholar Page. Position prior to joining the group: Graduate student, Boston University. Position upon leaving the group: Staff Scientist position at Samsung.
• Dr. Sridhar Sadasivam (Postdoctoral fellow, Argonne National Laboratory), June 2016 – January 2018 Linkedin, Scholar Page. Position prior to joining the group: Graduate student, Purdue University. Position upon leaving the group: Staff Scientist position at Intel.
• Dr. Srilok Srinivasan (Postdoctoral fellow, Argonne National Laboratory, co-supervised by Dr. Subramanian Sankaranarayanan), January 2019 – April 2021 Linkedin, Scholar Page. Position prior to joining the group: Graduate student, Iowa State University. Position upon leaving the group: Machine Learning Scientist at Peptilogics.
• Dr. Henry Chan (Postdoctoral fellow, Argonne National Laboratory, supervised by Dr. Subramanian Sankaranarayanan), February 2019 – September 2020 Linkedin, Scholar Page.Position prior to joining the group: Postdoctoral fellow, University of Illinois at Chicago. Position upon leaving the group: Assistant Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory.
• Mr. Kevin Ryczko (Visiting Graduate Student), May – August 2018, supervised by Dr. Isaac Tamblyn Linkedin, Scholar Page. Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Graduate student, Department of Physics, University of Ottawa.
• Mr. Nicholas Rivera (Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Practicum), June – August 2018 Linkedin, Scholar Page. Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Graduate student, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
• Mr. Praveen Balaji (Student Research Participation Program, Argonne National Laboratory), June – August 2018 Linkedin. Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Undergraduate student, Department of Physics and Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago.
• Mr. Trevor Steiner (Research Experience for Undergraduates, Northwestern University MRSEC, co-supervised by Dr. Qunfei Zhou), June – August 2018 Linkedin, Scholar Page.Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Undergraduate student, Department of Materials Science University of Minnesota. 
• Mr. Daniel Palmer (DOE SULI Program, Argonne National Laboratory), May – July 2020, Research Aide August 2020 – July 2021 Linkedin.; Position prior to joining the group: Undergraduate student, Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame. Position upon leaving the group: Graduate student, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Mr. Bukuru Anaclet (Research Experience for Undergraduates, Northwestern University MRSEC, co-supervised by Dr. Qunfei Zhou), June – August 2020, REU+ fellow, Northwestern University, September 2020 – March 2021 Linkedin, Scholar Page.; Position prior to joining/upon leaving the group: Undergraduate student, Department of Chemistry, Pomona College.
• Prof. Salvador Barraza-Lopez (Sabbatical stay from University of Arkansas), May – September 2018 homepage, Scholar Page.