Category: Announcements

matgenb

matgenb – Getting data from the Materials Project

The Materials Virtual Lab has started matgenb, a new public repository to share example notebooks that demonstrate the utilization of open-source codes for the study of materials science. We frequently get requests (from students, postdocs, collaborators, or just general users) for example codes that demonstrate various capabilities in the open-source software we maintain and contribute to, such as the Materials Project software stack comprising pymatgen, custodian, and Fireworks. This repo is a start at building a more sustainable path towards sharing of code examples. The first example notebook has been posted on Getting data from the Materials Project.

Announcements

2016 year-end message by Prof Ong

2016 is coming to a close. Before some of you leave for the holidays, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. This year, I have decided to start a new tradition – the year-end message. It has been a great year for the Materials Virtual Lab. We have come a long way since our founding a little over three years ago, and I believe we have now firmly established ourselves as one of the up-and-coming computational materials research groups in the world. We will end 2016 on a high note with a little over 20 publications in highly respected journals. Funding is at a very healthy level for a group of our age, and we are now a dynamic family of three postdoctoral associates, ten graduate students and three undergraduates. Two of our earliest members (Zhi and Paul) have completed their Senate Exams, and another two (Chen, Zhenbin and Zhuoying) have completed their Literature Review Exams. We welcomed three new group members (Chi, Hui and Zhuonan), and one new-old group member (Richard) in Fall 2016. We will also soon say goodbye to Bala, who has found an excellent opportunity in NASA. We wish him all the best […]

Announcements

We are hiring!

We are seeking to fill one postdoctoral position. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to lead exciting projects that integrate advanced first principles methods, information technology and experiments (through external collaborations) to develop novel materials in energy storage and solid-state lighting. They will also receive mentoring to prepare them for future careers in academia or industry, including project management skills, proposal writing and effective scientific communication. More information can be found at http://www.materialsvirtuallab.org/positions. The ideal candidate should demonstrate creativity, passion for scientific inquiry, and an ability to link fundamental science to real-world applications. The ideal candidate will also have: An advanced degree in materials science and/or solid-state physics. Experience with first principles methods, such as density functional theory (DFT), ab initio molecular dynamics, density functional perturbation theory or GW. Programming skills, preferably with experience in sustainable software development for robust widely used code bases. Interested applicants should send the following materials to ongsp@ucsd.edu. A cover letter of no more than one page summarizing their research accomplishments and interests Curriculum vitae (Optional, but recommended) Samples of scientific codes they have written, either as a web link to a publicly accessible software repository or an email attachment.

Announcements, Publications

Crystalium released

We have published the world’s largest database of surface energies and Wulff shapes, dubbed Crystalium. A collaborative effort between the Materials Virtual Lab and the Materials Project, this new open-source database can help researchers design new materials for technologies in which surfaces and interfaces play an important role, such as fuel cells, catalytic converters in cars, computer microchips, nanomaterials and solid-state batteries. You can read more about it in the UCSD press release on EurekAlert! This work is published in Scientific Data as an open-access article, and Richard Tran, one of our undergraduate volunteers, is the first author.

Announcements

Upcoming talks at XXV International Materials Research Congress

Prof Ong and Zhenbin Wang will be giving the following talks at the upcoming XXV International Materials Research Congress held in Cancun, Mexico. Shyue Ping Ong, “Multi-Electron Polyanion Cathodes For High Energy Density Alkali-Ion Batteries”, Symposium B4. Materials and technologies for stationary electrochemical energy storage, Wed Aug 17 2016, 8:30am. Zhenbin Wang, “Discovery of Novel Narrow-Band Red Phosphors using High-Throughput First Principles Descriptors”, Symposium B2. Inorganic Luminescent Materials and Applications, Thurs, Aug 18 2016, 12:45 pm. We look forward to meeting fellow scientists and researchers who are there!

Announcements

pymatgen 4.0.0 released

Version 4.0.0 of pymatgen has just been released. This new version cleans up a lot of the old deprecated code, and includes a lot of new functionality such as ABINIT8 support, improved lammps analysis, and many bug fixes. Check it out at http://www.pymatgen.org.

Announcements

Talks at 229th ECS Meeting

Zhuoying and Iek-Heng are giving talks on their work on Na3PS4 and Li7P3S11 solid electrolytes at the 229th ECS Meeting in San Diego. Both talks are in the morning (9am and 11:30am) Wed Jun 1 in the Symposium A04 – Battery Modeling and Computation at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront – Indigo 202A. Also, Prof Ong is one of the organizers of Symposium A04.