At the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences (SIMES), physicists, materials scientists, chemists and earth and environmental scientists design new generations of materials aimed at creating clean, economical energy conversion and storage technologies. These materials are designed from the atom up, using a combination of theory, computer simulation, lab synthesis and testing under realistic conditions.

Researchers at the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis combine theory and experiment to design catalysts for promoting chemical reactions, such as water splitting, that are important for gathering and storing solar energy. Their catalyst design strategies are based on a combination of theory, synthesis, characterization and testing. They’re also developing databases of surface chemical properties and making them freely available to researchers in academia and industry.

Scientists affiliated with the Stanford PULSE Institute use intense laser pulses, each measured in millionths of a billionth of a second, to image and analyze chemical reactions, phase transformations and magnetic switching. Understanding these phenomena helps improve technologies that rely on them.