Seán Kavanagh

@kavanaghsean.bsky.social

https://sam-lab.net Computational chemist, physicist, material scientist? Who knows... Asst Prof in Simulation of Energy Materials at the University of Cambridge (Chemistry) Formerly Environmental Fellow @harvard.edu

Honoured to be named a Wiley Research Hero (Open Science Advocacy)! 👨‍💻 Open access data, software, papers etc are transforming research, esp computational materials science. Increasing recognition for community contributions will motivate young researchers to follow suit!👨‍💻📈

Wiley Online Library@wileyonlinelibrary.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Congratulations to the 2025 Wiley Research Heroes! 🎉 Recognizing researchers making science more inclusive, innovative, and impactful worldwide. Learn more about the winners. 🔗: https://ow.ly/l5es50Y0hXA #WileyResearchHeroes

Defect simulations are notoriously sensitive to the many choices required 👨‍💻📊 In this Perspective, we highlight best practices in calculating 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 defect properties, hoping to establish guidelines for robust, transparent and reproducible defect simulations 🌟 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Guidelines for robust and reproducible point defect simulations in crystals - Nature Reviews Materials

Point defects critically influence material properties and require accurate computational modelling for reliable predictions. This Perspective outlines best practices for defect simulations using supe...

nature.com

Defect calculations have many pitfalls and key considerations for achieving good accuracy 🎯 In this perspective, we discuss these issues, how to avoid and how we can make defect simulations more reproducible – particularly important with more ML developments! 📊 chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

Guidelines for robust and reproducible point defect simulations in crystals

Many physical properties of functional materials are governed by their impurities rather than their bulk characteristics. Defects in crystals can activate electronic and ionic conductivity, create act...

chemrxiv.org

I will be joining the University of Cambridge as an Assistant Professor in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry! 🧪🎉 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, and am very keen to support fellowship applications – visit our website for details! ⬇️

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Starting with a visit to London in 2023, Cibrán began a deep dive on defects in pnictogen chalcohalides (BiChX), finding the chalcogen vacancy to dominate recombination (similar to Sb2Se3!). He shows that selective anion substitutions can mitigate their effect! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Chalcogen Vacancies Rule Charge Recombination in Pnictogen Chalcohalide Solar-Cell Absorbers

Pnictogen chalcohalides (MChX) represent an emerging class of nontoxic photovoltaic absorbers, valued for their favorable synthesis conditions and optoelectronic properties. Despite their proposed def...

pubs.acs.org

doped (3.1.0) and ShakeNBreak (3.4.2) have had new releases! - Streamlined chemical potential handling - Auto-compatibility checks w/competing phases calculation settings (as for defects) – common pitfall - Directly parse spin magnetisation (incl SOC) ... github.com/SMTG-Bham/do...

Release 3.1.0 · SMTG-Bham/doped

Update chemical potentials code: Handle recent breaking changes in pymatgen (Apr 2025). Auto check compatibility of INCAR\s and POTCAR\s in competing phases calculations (as already done for super...

github.com

Intrinsic & extrinsic (dopant) defect chemistry of trigonal Selenium for PV, incl metastable states & non-radiative recombination ⬇️ Combined theory & expt analysis, we find an intrinsic tolerance to 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 defects, with GBs/interfaces the limiting factor for PV 📈 pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A...

Intrinsic point defect tolerance in selenium for indoor and tandem photovoltaics

Selenium has reemerged as a promising absorber material for tandem and indoor photovoltaic (PV) devices due to its elemental simplicity, unique structural features, and wide band gap. However, despite...

pubs.rsc.org

The latest version of 𝙙𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙙 (and 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒌𝒆𝑵𝑩𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌), our defect modelling python packages, have been released! Incl: - Major efficiency updates - Advanced defect/carrier thermodynamics w/custom constraints - Auto shallow defect handling - CC diagram generation ...🧵👇

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Was a fun experience giving my first proper* invited conference talk for @roysocchem.bsky.social Next Gen PV! Despite some severe technical difficulties and a ̶f̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶a̶r̶m̶ ̶ unplanned intermission... 😅 Thanks for the invitation! @proffreitag.bsky.social #compchem

Marina Freitag@proffreitag.bsky.social · 2y ago

Next @kavanaghsean.bsky.social giving a homecoming talk on modelling of defects in CdTe! #ECRs @harvard.edu 👏🏻⚡️ @roysocchem.bsky.social