Tedori-Callinan Lecture Series: 2013

"Quantum Mechanics and the Future of the Planet"

Presented by: Emily A. Carter
Founding Director, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Applied and Computational Mathematics
Princeton University

Thursday, April 25, 2013
1:30 PM
Heilmeier Hall, Towne Building Room 100

Sponsored by Penn Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. View past speakers in the series. Learn more about the sponsor of this series.

Abstract

To preserve the planet for future generations, we must make major science and engineering breakthroughs in the way we harvest, store, transmit, and use energy. Dr. Carter’s research contributes to this effort by developing fast yet accurate quantum mechanics simulation methods to investigate materials and phenomena related to sustainable energy. Current projects include evaluating new materials for photovoltaics and photo-catalytic electrodes to convert sunlight into electricity and fuels, quantifying biofuel combustion kinetics, optimizing ion and electron transport in solid oxide fuel cells, evaluating mechanical properties of lightweight alloys for fuel-efficient vehicles, and investigating liquid lithium for fusion reactor walls. The latter two projects will be the focus of this talk. They exploit a promising quantum technique - orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT) - that directly evaluates electron distributions. This method, orders of magnitude faster than standard DFT, can be used to study many thousands of atoms with quantum mechanics. Consequently, OFDFT can explicitly study, e.g., structure and motion of dislocations, and hence evaluate the origins of plasticity in metals from first principles. Recent advances in both theory and applications will be discussed.

Biography

Emily Carter is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. She is the founding director of Princeton's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Her current research focuses on enabling discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy.

Dr. Carter received her B.S. from UC Berkeley in 1982 and her Ph.D. from Caltech in 1987. After postdoctoral work at U. Colorado, Boulder, she spent 16 years on the faculty of UCLA as Professor of Chemistry and later of Materials Science and Engineering. She moved to Princeton in 2004.

The author of over 270 publications, Dr. Carter has delivered more than 430 invited lectures and serves on numerous international advisory boards spanning a wide range of disciplines. Her scholarly work has been recognized by numerous awards and honors, including the ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research; election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science; the August Wilhelm von Hoffmann Lecture of the German Chemical Society; and a Docteur Honoris Causa from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.