Massimiliano Stengel

Institut de Ciencia de Materials de Barcelona (CSIC) Campus UAB 08193 Bellaterra Spain Tel.: +34 935 801853 ext. 292 E-mail: mstengel AT icmab.es

Research Interests

I'm currently interested in the modern theory of polarization, finite electric fields and magnetic phenomena, with applications to metal/perovskite interfaces and novel magnetoelectric devices. In addition to the application of existing methods and algorithms to new physical problems, an important part of my work is devoted to the exploration of new techniques and their implementation into the high-performance electronic structure package that I personally maintain (see below). In the past I also worked on the first-principles study of metal-supported nanostructures, with a particular focus on ultrathin insulating films, supramolecular self-assembled clusters and complex overlayer-induced substrate reconstructions.

Publications

• First-principles study of high-field piezoelectricity in tetragonal PbTiO3
  A. Roy, M. Stengel and D. Vanderbilt
  Phys. Rev. B 80, 014102 (2010).
• Berry-phase theory of polar discontinuities at oxide-oxide interfaces
  M. Stengel and D. Vanderbilt
  Phys. Rev. B 80, 241103(R) (2009).
• First-principles modeling of ferroelectric capacitors via constrained displacement field calculations.
  M. Stengel, D. Vanderbilt and N. A. Spaldin
  Phys. Rev. B 80, 224110 (2009).
• Enhancement of ferroelectricity at metal/oxide interfaces.
  M. Stengel, D. Vanderbilt and N. A. Spaldin
  Nature Materials 8, 392-397 (2009).
• Electric displacement as the fundamental variable in electronic-structure calculations
  M. Stengel, N. A. Spaldin and D. Vanderbilt
  Nature Physics 5, 304-308 (2009).
• Supramolecular self assembly driven by electrostatic repulsion: The 1D aggregation of rubrene pentagons on Au(111).
  G. Tomba, M. Stengel, W.-D. Schneider, A. Baldereschi and A. de Vita
  ACS Nano, Article ASAP.
• Predicting polarization and nonlinear dielectric response of arbitrary perovskite superlattice sequences
  X. Wu, M. Stengel, K. M. Rabe, D. Vanderbilt
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 087601 (2008).
  Chosen as "Editor's Suggestion", see Announcement PRL 98, 010001 (2007).
• Self-interaction correction with Wannier functions
  M. Stengel and N. A. Spaldin
  Phys. Rev. B 77, 155106 (2008).
• Carrier-mediated magnetoelectricity in complex oxide heterostructures
  J. M. Rondinelli, M. Stengel and N. A. Spaldin
  Nature Nanotechnology 3, 46 (2008).
  Reviewed in: R. Ramesh, Theory leads the way to new devices, Nature Nanotechnology 3, 7 (2008), News and Views.
• Ab-initio theory of metal-insulator interfaces in a finite electric field
  M. Stengel and N. A. Spaldin
  Phys. Rev. B 75, 205121 (2007).
• Origin of the dielectric dead layer in nanoscale capacitors
  M. Stengel and N. A. Spaldin
  Nature (London) 443, 679 (2006).
  Reviewed in: P. Rodgers, Inside the "dead layer", Nature Nanotechnology, doi: 10.1038/nnano.2006.104 (2006), Research Highlights.
  Reviewed in: K. M. Rabe, New life for the "dead layer", Nature Nanotechnology 1, 171 (2006), News and Views.
• Accurate polarization within a unified Wannier function formalism
  M. Stengel and N. A. Spaldin
  Phys. Rev. B 73, 075121 (2006).
• Local work function Moire pattern on ultrathin ionic films: NaCl on Ag(100)
  M. Pivetta, F. Patthey, M. Stengel, A. Baldereschi and W.-D. Schneider
  Phys. Rev. B 72, 115404 (2005).
• Modeling nucleation and insulating properties of oxide surfaces and ultra-thin films
  S. Schintke, M. Stengel, L. C. Ciacchi, W.-D. Schneider, M. Svetina, J. V. Barth, O. Sbaizero, S. Roitti, S. Meriani and A. De Vita
  Key Engineering Materials 264-268: 485-488, Part 1-3 (2004).
• Adatom-vacancy mechanisms for the C₆₀/Al(111)-(6x6) reconstruction
  M. Stengel, A. De Vita and A. Baldereschi
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 166101 (2003).
• Parameterisation to tailor commodity clusters to applications
  R. Gruber, P. Volgers, A. De Vita, M. Stengel and T.-M. Tran
  Fut. Gen. Comp. Sys. 19, 111 (2003).
• Insulator at the ultrathin limit: MgO on Ag(001)
  S. Schintke, S. Messerli, M. Pivetta, F. Patthey, L. Libioulle, M. Stengel, A. De Vita and W.-D. Schneider
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 276801 (2001)
  Reviewed by the Nature Physics Portal as a research highlight.
• Supramolecular self-assembly and selective step decoration on the Au(111) surface
  M. Vladimirova, M. Stengel, A. De Vita, A. Baldereschi, M. Bohringer, K. Morgenstern, R. Berndt, W.-D. Schneider
  Europhys. Lett. 56, 254 (2001),
• First-principles molecular dynamics of metals: A Lagrangian formulation
  M. Stengel and A. De Vita
  Phys. Rev. B 62, 15283 (2001)

Software

Since 1999 I've been developing and using a parallel ab-initio package called LAUTREC. Before my intervention it used to be a neat and powerful piece of software, featuring state-of-the-art performance in large-scale Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics with norm-conserving pseudopotentials. Now it is a messy and powerful piece of software, featuring state-of-the-art performance in large- and small-scale Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics with PAW datasets and/or norm-conserving pseudopotentials. I don't distribute the code, but I'm more than happy to share it in the context of an academic collaboration. You can find it here (password protected).

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

Education

Research Experience

02/2010 - present

"Ramon y Cajal" fellow, ICMAB-CSIC

04/2009 - 09/2009

Postdoctoral position, CECAM, Lausanne, in the group of Prof. Wanda Andreoni

02/2005 - 04/2009

Postdoctoral position, Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, in the group of Prof. Nicola Spaldin

01/2000 - 06/2004

Ph.D. thesis: First-principles molecular-dynamics study of metal-supported nanosystems
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland. Advisor: Prof. Alfonso Baldereschi

Personal page

I spend most of my free time rock-climbing, and I also enjoy writing. Sometimes I manage to combine the two...