Inventor Profiles

Research area The Computational Materials Group (CMG) at UW-Madison uses atomic scale modeling to understand and design new materials. The research group employs highly accurate ab initio (first-principles) techniques to study electronic structure and energetics of smaller systems, and interatomic potential modeling to study up to billions of atoms. These core approaches are combined with a wide range of other computational methods, including Monte Carlo, coarse graining, thermodynamics, statistical physics and machine learning. These tools allow the team to look deeply and quantitatively at phenomena over an extensive range of time and length scales, and to explore vast compositional spaces for new materials.

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What excites you about your work? 

“I am most excited by the chance to design new materials with computational tools. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to have magical powers, and the ability to model and predict materials behavior with the computer seems about as close as one gets to magic in real life. The space of possible materials is enormous, and we have just scratched the surface of what is possible. Computers can help us efficiently search for transformative new materials for energy, health, space travel and more. I love the experience of developing methods and applying them to find things we might never have discovered. For example, right now I am looking for novel ionic conductors. Some conductors move oxygen and can help in applications from more efficient use of fossil fuels with fuel cells to delivering oxygen at high altitude for pilots. Other conductors move Na and are critical to developing Na-ion batteries for cheaper and safer power sources and avoidance of excessive dependence on uncertain Li supplies.”

What do you hope to achieve? 

“I hope to help support better lives through technology. As a faculty member, I have the good fortune to do this in multiple ways. First, through my teaching and research advising, I have the great honor of getting to train the next generation of technological innovators and leaders. I hope that my efforts will help these amazing young people realize their full potential. Second, through research, I have the opportunity to contribute to human understanding and technology. I hope that methods I develop will be widely adopted to help discover and optimize materials by many others. Finally, I also hope that some of the materials we are developing, including new materials for vacuum electronics, fuel cells, batteries and other applications, will eventually help improve technologies and support better lives for everyone.”

Professor Morgan’s work with materials discovery using computational tools will lead to breakthroughs in a number of industries.

– Michael Carey, WARF, Licensing Manager