Traditionally, scientists discover new materials, and then probe them to try to better understand their properties. Theoretical materials physicist Craig Fennie does it in reverse. “We have been rethinking the problem of materials discovery from that of the perspective of a physicist,” says Fennie, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist and a 2013 recipient of a prestigious MacArthur fellowship, a \$625,000 no strings attached award, popularly known as a “genius” grant. Scientists typically “make something, measure it, report it, then try to understand what they just reported. Today we are turning that approach around,” he says, essentially by combining the tools of theoretical physics with those of solid-state chemistry to discover new materials with attractive and useful electrical, magnetic and optical properties. “Pioneers in my field…taught us that we (physicists) can and should do more.” Fennie, an assistant professor of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University, is creating new materials by employing a “first principles” approach based on quantum mechanics, in which he builds materials atom by atom, starting with mathematical models, in order to gain the needed physical properties. A main focus of his research is in understanding how the composition, geometry and topology of complex crystalline motifs
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