Dr. Marijn van Huis
Dr. Marijn van Huis holds a tenure track position at Utrecht University (Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science). He is an expert both in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, and uses these experimental and simulation tools to study nanoparticles and nanocrystals with novel physical properties. These nanomaterials undergo dramatic structural and chemical transformations upon heating or irradiation, which are investigated by performing experiments in-situ in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). Through recently developed ground-breaking technology, transitions at elevated temperatures can now be imaged with atomic resolution and in real time. In conjunction with the experiments, detailed quantum mechanical and semi-empirical atomistic simulations are conducted to unravel the energetics of the atomic-scale reconstruction mechanisms. I strongly feel that experiment and theory need to be combined in an adequate way in order to establish structure-property relationships and to identify the relevant driving forces for the transformations.