Mikhail Katsnelson

Research question

I am dealing with a broad circle of problems in condensed matter physics and materials science but three subfields should be specially mentioned: (1) two-dimensional materials; (2) magnetism and magnetic materials; (3) strongly correlated materials. In all of these cases, I am very much interested in developing the way from basic and seemingly abstract laws of quantum physics to explanations and predictions of properties of real materials.

Sustainability aspects

In two-dimensional materials, I was especially strongly involved in studies of graphene, from their very beginning. I participated in many applied works on graphene, including chemical sensors, tunneling transistors, and chemistry of graphene. I believe that the works on hydrogenation of graphene and on penetration of hydrogen through graphene membrane which we still continue have especially serious potential, e.g., for extraction hydrogen from air and hydrogen energetics.

In magnetism, we develop a general approach allowing to compute basic magnetic properties of materials from the laws of quantum mechanics. In combination with contemporary machine learning tools they can be used for screening of the list of possible magnetic materials and for creating novel materials with desired properties, for example for replacing expensive rare earth elements by something more economically favorable, or for the increase of Curie temperature of magnetic semiconductors.

We are also working hardly on optical properties of two- and three-dimensional materials, including very difficult case of strongly correlated systems. This can be important for the development of such fields as photonics and plasmonics, with a perspective of information processing with much lower energy consumption than in traditional electronics.