Personnel
Dr. Dholabhai received B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Nuclear Physics from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (India), and M.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in Physics & Applied Physics from University of Texas at Arlington. After completing graduate studies, he worked at Arizona State University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory before joining RIT in Fall 2017.
Student Researchers
Dan Sabrsula
Dan is pursuing BS in Physics. Dan is working on the capstone project focused on studying the influence of dopants and defects in strontium titanate surfaces.
Leander Held
Leander is pursuing a BS Physics and an MS in Materials Science and Engineering. Leander’s research interests are centered on condensed matter physics, specifically the design and testing of novel materials. Using Molecular Dynamics simulations, he is analyzing the physical behaviors of High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) by studying trends in tensile strength and structural stability. He is working on this project in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory to design next-generation HEAs.
Michael Grant
Michael is pursuing BS in Chemistry. Michael’s research interest involves metallurgy specifically the study of High Entropy Alloys. He uses Molecular Dynamics to study the physical properties of a variety of different compositions of the alloyed systems.
Matthew Race
Matthew is pursuing BS in Chemistry. Matthew’s research interests are in the field of Computational Chemistry, specifically the methodology behind Hartree-Fock Molecular Orbital Theory and Molecular Mechanics Force Field Methods.
Will Ebmeyer
Will is a Summer Researcher in the group with research interests in computational physics involving simulating dynamic systems.
Rees Folaron
Rees is BS Physics - MS Materials Science and Engineering student. His research focuses on molecular dynamics simulations of novel carbon nanotubes, and assist their synthesis by applying magnetic field to study growth mechanisms and stems from a desire to see the versatile material reach its potential as a nanofiber in modern technology. His long term goal is to become an astronaut.
Brian Luan
Brian is pursuing a BS in Chemistry and a MS in Materials Science and Engineering. His research interests center on condensed matter physics, specifically electronic structure modeling of materials. Brian's current research uses density functional theory to simulate carbon dioxide adsorption on silicates in order to design novel carbon sequestration materials.
Vedgopal Balasubramanian Govindhram
Vedgopal is pursuing MS in Materials Science and Engineering. He is currently working on developing atomic level understanding of doping mechanism in wollastonite surfaces to facilitate carbon dioxide sequestration.
Kurt Dawson
Kurt is a GRA and PhD student in Microsystems Engineering. He received his B.A. in Physics from SUNY Geneseo. His research interests focus on the use of atomistic computational methods such as density functional theory and molecular dynamics to predict the properties of materials and discern their practicality for use in engineering applications. He is currently studying interfaces of oxide thin films and heterostructures for ionic conductivity applications in solid oxide fuel cell technologies, with focus on the role of misfit dislocations.
Chloe Marzano
Chloe is pursuing a BS in Physics. Chloe's research studies misfit dislocations in mismatched perovskite oxide heterostructures using molecular dynamics simulations. Her research is used to gain insight into the distributions of dopant atoms and oxygen vacancy defects in the vicinity of misfit dislocations. After graduation, she plans on joining graduate school.
Jason Rakowsky
Jason is pursuing BS Physics and MS Physics. He is studying novel oxide-oxide heterostructures and their potential role for fuel cell electrolytes. His research is focused on utilizing density functional theory calculations to predict atomic and electronic structure of point defects and extended defects in oxide heterostructures. After graduation, he plans to gain further work experience in nanoionic and nanophotonic devices.
Shourya Mann
Shourya's research focused on predicting the thermodynamic stability of dopants at the interface of perovskite heterostructures. His study also categorized the atomic scale structure of misfit dislocations in BaSnO3-SrTiO3 heterostructure. He plans to gain further work experience to achieve his dream of building a tech solutions company.
Stephen Fritz
Stephen is pursuing a BS in Physics. He is currently studying misfit dislocations in BaSnO3-SrTiO3 heterostructures using molecular dynamics simulations. His research is focused on gaining a better understanding of how dopants and oxygen vacancies affect ion transportation at the interfaces of these materials. After graduation he plans to join the military before pursuing graduate education.
Jake Chetney
Jake is a senior pursuing BS in Physics. His research mainly involves the use of molecular dynamics simulations to study ionic transportation in oxide heterostructures and the influence of misfit dislocations on dopant-defect clusters and oxygen vacancy migration.
Group Alumni
Zachary B. Santos
Zack graduated with BS in Physics/MS Materials Science and Engineering in Spring 2019. Zack’s research interests are in computational material design. Defects are one of many ways a semiconductor can be tuned to exact specifications. Using DFT methods, Zack studied the defects in semiconducting heterostructure of InAs/ MoS2. Trends in the stability of the structure when defects are present were investigated. Further, through the use of DOS plots the change to the indirect band gap due to these defects were characterized, and related to the stability of the defects.
Alexander Pompo
Alex graduated with BS in Physics in Fall 2018. His capstone research was focused on MgO surfaces. The title of his capstone paper was: “Determination of Surface Energy of Low Index Doped Magnesium Oxide Surfaces”