Materials Hipster #6: Piero Canepa
tags: [materials_hipster batteries Piero was recently appointed as assistant professor in materials at National University of Singapore. His research uses atomistic modelling to design new materials - with a strong focus on materials and interfaces in batteries. Piero came to Singapore from Torino, by way of Kent, MIT, Berkeley and Bath. We caught up in Singapore to find out what Piero thinks is hot in materials right now. For more on his research checkout https://caneparesearch.org/team/piero-canepa/.
What’s your favourite all time material?
LGPS - \(Li_{10}GeP_2S_{12}\). It’s a Li ion conductor, mostly developed by this one Japanese guy (Kanno). He spent over 30 years of his life to understand this quaternary phase diagram. He mapped pretty much all the meta-stable phases, a good deal of them. And it has interesting ion transport properties. So it was reported as an ion conductor in Nature Materials (link to the paper), but this guy was working carefully on it for many years before. These materials have a higher conductivity than liquid electrolytes, which is a pretty big deal, but their practicality is still under investigation. The tricky thing is to make anything crystalline in this phase space, because they tend to always become glass, so reproducibility pf phases is rather tricky!
What material is super-hot right now?
If you’re talking batteries, which is my area of expertise, then Li-excess NMC, which are oxides of various nickel, manganese and cobalt compositions. They’re really popular at the moment.
If you could only read one journal which one would it be?
Oh, that has to be Chemistry of Materials, that’s my go to journal.
Tell me about a criminally under-rated journal
I think actually these days Physical Review B is a bit under-rated. It is still one of my go to places. But I feel that it is not so popular in the materials community as it used to be. Especially with the new Physical Review Zoo (Applied and Materials). But Phys Rev B is still a pretty special journal.
PRL or JACS?
PRL, that’s an easy one for me!
What’s the best crafted paper you’ve read recently?
It was a Nature Physics. It gave the definitions to all these fancy quasi-particles like skyrmions, plasmons etc. It was really illuminating, how there are all these quasi-particles in all of condensed matter physics, across all energy ranges. The quasiparticle zoo link to the paper.
Who’s papers make you read a bit deeper?
In my field, there is a battery guy called Jeff Dahn. He writes papers that have many angles, and he certainly understands all of these angles, it’s impressive. I don’t understand all the angles, so I have to read more just to try to keep up with his papers. Is Cobalt Needed in Ni-Rich Positive Electrode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries? link to the paper and more can be found here.
If you were choosing your first postdoc position right now, where would you do it and why?
I would choose IBM Zurich, and not to do theory but to do experimental things. I fell in love with that lab when I visited in 2013. People seem really collaborative, because they have to be. Seems like a great atmosphere different to a university or a national lab.
Favourite conference?
It’s IMLB International Meeting for Lithium Ion Batteries. It’s held every two years and it rotates. Last year it was in Kyoto and next year it will be in Berlin.
Best conference catering you’ve experienced?
Oh, that is definitely ICMAT in Singapore.
Worst conference catering?
I think that MRS and APS and ACS all together could go to hell for me!!
What do you do outside materials?
I spend a lot of time with my daughter. Also recently I introduced her to one of my favourite hobbies, which is to randomly take a bus to somewhere just to explore, without destination. I really like to walk around in places, but not with a plan, just to explore and see what I find. I believe that my daughter really enjoyed this too, she loves the idea!
Whiskey or gin?
I think whiskey - those Japanese whiskeys are amazing!