Learn more about some recent research highlights from the Center for Inverse Design

Meet some of our principal investigators in the Center for Inverse Design by viewing the short videos

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Center for Inverse Design

The Center for Inverse Design (CID) was a first-generation (2009–2014) Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. To address a crucial scientific grand challenge, the Center developed and utilized a new approach to material science. As shown in the figure below, rather than using the conventional direct approach ("Given the structure, find the electronic properties"), we used a "materials by inverse design" approach ("Given the desired property, find the structure").

Illustration that has an electronic band diagram on the left (one curved line concave upward and two curved lines concave downward) and an atomic model on the right (red and blue balls in a crystal structure). An arrow from left to right indicates the direction of materials by inverse design. An arrow from right to left indicates the direction of the conventional approach.Comparison of the "materials by inverse design" approach (left to right) versus the conventional approach (right to left)

The target properties of interest include general semiconductor optical and electrical properties; the desired materials functionalities include electron- and hole-conductive transparent conductors, solar absorbers, and nanostructures forenergy sustainability. Our predictions of materials are examined iteratively by various synthetic approaches, including high-throughput parallel materials science.

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