Short biography

Massimiliano Stengel graduated in Physics at the University of Trieste (1999) and received his PhD in Science from the Swiss Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL) in 2004. From February 2005 to April 2009 he was a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Nicola Spaldin at the Materials Department (UC Santa Barbara), and from May to September 2009 at CECAM (EPFL) under the supervision of Prof. Wanda Andreoni. From February 2010 to September 2011 he worked at ICMAB in Barcelona as a "Ramón y Cajal" fellow, before joining ICREA as a Research Professor in October 2011.

Research interests

My research develops and uses frontier electronic-structure methods to tackle key fundamental and technological questions in ferroelectricity, magnetism, surface science and metal/oxide interfaces. In the past few years I have focused on perovskite thin films, and in particular on understanding how the reduced size affects their functional properties. I am currently interested in the study of novel functionalities in oxide-based systems (e.g. flexoelectricity, magnetoelectric effects, confined electron gases, improper ferroelectricity) and in development of accurate modeling strategies to bridge the gap between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds.

Key words

first-principles theory, ferroelectrics, magnetoelectrics, interfaces, thin films