Turan Birol

Turan Birol
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (CEMS)Contact
Amundson Hall Room 485 421 Washington Avenue SeMinneapolis, MN 55455
Affiliations
Education
Ph.D., Cornell University, 2013
M.S., Koç University, 2007
B.S., Middle East Technical University, 2005
Professional Background
Assistant Professor, CEMS, University of Minnesota, 2016
Postdoc, Condensed Matter Theory, Rutgers University, 2013 - 2016
I am a first principles theorist, who use state of the art first principles methods to work on solid state physics problems, and perform materials by design: not to only explain, but also to predict the properties of crystalline matter, and come up with new compounds with superior properties. My research interests lie on the intersection of solid state physics, structural chemistry, and materials science, and my long term research goal is to identify materials realizations of the exotic phases in condensed matter.
My group works on a wide range of materials that host interesting phenomena, including ferroelectrics, multiferroics, spin-orbit coupled Mott insulators, and high temperature superconductors. Our ab initio tool box includes not only the standard Kohn-Sham Density Functional Theory (DFT), but also more advanced methods that build upon DFT, such as the Embedded Dynamical Mean Field Theory, and evolutionary structure prediction algorithms. The most important analytical tools we employ are Group and Representation Theories, which we extensively apply on solid state materials.
Honors and Awards
Young Investigator Award, Office of Naval Research, 2020
Outstanding Referee, Physical Review Journals, American Physical Society, 2020