Serge M. Nakhmanson

Associate Professor

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

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Education

• Postdoctoral Research Associate, Rutgers University, Postdoctoral advisors: K. M. Rabe and D. Vanderbilt, 2004-2006
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, NC State University, Postdoctoral advisor: J. Bernholc, 2001-2004
• Ph.D., Ohio University, 2001

Research Focus

• Multifunctional ferroic materials by rational design with quantum-mechanical calculations
• Building morphotropic phase boundaries into materials to achieve enhancement of functional properties
• Mesoscale simulations of electroactive materials and nanostructures
• “Soft” multifunctional materials: polymers, oligomers, molecular crystals and cocrystals

Awards

Honors Condensed Matter and Solid State Program stipend, Ohio University, 2000

Publications

Gautam, Y. Lee, C. Ugwumadu, K. Nepal, S. Nakhmanson and D. A. Drabold, Site-projected Thermal Conductivity: Application to defects, interfaces, and homogeneously disordered materials, Phys. Status Solidi RRL 2400306 (2025).

Gurung, M. F. Ishtiyaq, S. P. Alpay, J. Mangeri, S. Nakhmanson, Extrinsic Dielectric Response due to Domain Wall Motion in Ferroelectric BaTiO₃, Comp. Mater. Today 5, 100016 (2025).

N. Bhuiyan, S. Nakhmanson, L. D. Frame, Impact of Secondary-Phase Particle Morphology on Grain Growth in Pure Copper Using a Phase Field Simulation Approach, Adv. Eng. Mater. 26, 2400564 (2024).

Fazzino, U. Habiba, L. Kuna, S. Nakhmanson, R. J. Hebert, Calibration of particle interactions for discrete element modeling of powder flow, Comput. Particle Mech. 11, 1517 (2024).

R. Basaula, M. Daeipour, B. Feygelson, S. Nakhmanson, Predicting thermoelectric figure of merit in complex materials: What do we need to know? Acta Mater. 271, 119889 (2024).

Ghosh, D. P. Trujillo, S. Hazarika, E. Schiesser, M. J. Swamynathan, S. Ghosh, J.-X. Zhu, S. Nakhmanson, Identification of novel organic polar materials: A machine learning study with importance sampling, APL Mach. Learn. 1, 046115 (2023).

Gurung, J. M. Mangeri, A. M. Hagerstrom, N. D. Orloff, S. P. Alpay, S. Nakhmanson, Modeling Structure-Properties Relations in Compositionally Disordered Relaxor Dielectrics at Nanoscale, J. Appl. Phys. 134, 104102 (2023).

Roshdy, T. Chen, S. Nakhmanson, O. R. Bilal, Tunable ferroelectric auxetic metamaterials for guiding elastic waves in three-dimensions, Extreme Mech. Lett. 59, 101966 (2023).

D. Basaula, M. Daeipour, L. Kuna, J. Mangeri, B. Feygelson, S. Nakhmanson, Towards modeling thermoelectric properties of anisotropic polycrystalline materials, Acta Mater. 228, 117743 (2022).

L. Kuna, J. Mangeri, E. P. Gorzkowski, J. A. Wollmershauser, and S. Nakhmanson, Mesoscale modeling of light transmission modulation in ceramics, Acta Mater. 193, 261 (2020).

L. Kuna, J. Mangeri, E. P. Gorzkowski, J. A. Wollmershauser, and S. Nakhmanson, Mesoscale modeling of polycrystalline light transmission, Acta Mater. 175, 82 (2019).

D. Zhu, J. Mangeri, R. Wang, and S. Nakhmanson, Size, shape, and orientation dependence of the field-induced behavior in ferroelectric nanoparticles, J. Appl. Phys. 125, 134102 (2019).

K. C. Pitike, N. Khakpash, J. Mangeri, G. A. Rossetti Jr., and S. M. Nakhmanson, Landau-Devonshire thermodynamic potentials for displacive perovskite ferroelectrics from first principles, J. Mater. Sci. 54, 8381 (2019).

Ghosh, D. Trujillo, H. Choi, S. Nakhmanson, S. P. Alpay, and J.-X. Zhu, Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Lanthanum and Strontium Doped Bismuth Ferrite: A First-Principles Study, Sci. Rep. 9, 194 (2019).

Ghosh, L. Louis, K. K. Arora, B. C. Hancock, J. F. Krzyzaniak, P. Meenan, S. Nakhmanson and G. P. F. Wood, Assessment of machine learning approaches for predicting the crystallization propensity of active pharmaceutical ingredients, Cryst. Eng. Comm. 21, 1215 (2019).

Kuna, J. Mangeri, P.-X. Gao, S. Nakhmanson, Stress-induced shift of band gap in ZnO nanowires from finite-element modeling, Phys. Rev. Applied 8, 034031 (2017).

F. Yuk, K. C. Pitike, S. M. Nakhmanson, M. Eisenbach, Y. W. Li, V. R. Cooper, Towards an accurate description of perovskite ferroelectrics: exchange and correlation effects, Sci. Rep. 7, 43482 (2017).

Ghosh, T. Ahmed, D. A. Yarotski, S. M. Nakhmanson, J.-X. Zhu, Oxygen vacancy effects on double perovskite Bi₂FeMnO₆: A first-principles study, Europhys. Lett. 116, 57002 (2016).

Wang, K. C. Pitike, Y. Yuan, S. M. Nakhmanson, V. Gopalan, B. Jalan, Chemistry, growth kinetics, and epitaxial stabilization of Sn²⁺ in Sn-doped SrTiO₃ using (CH₃)₆Sn₂ tin precursor, APL Mater. 4, 126111 (2016).

Mangeri, K. C. Pitike, S. P. Alpay, S. M. Nakhmanson, Amplitudon and Phason Modes of Electrocaloric Energy Interconversion, NPJ Comp. Mater. 2, 16020 (2016).

Hong, S. M. Nakhmanson, D. D. Fong, Screening mechanisms at polar oxide heterointerfaces, Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 076501 (2016).

M. P. Cosgriff, P. Chen, S. S. Lee, H. J. Lee, L. Kuna, K. C. Pitike, L. Louis, W. D. Parker, H. Tajiri, S. M. Nakhmanson, J. Y. Jo, Z. Chen, L. Chen, and P. G. Evans, Nanosecond Phase Transition Dynamics in Compressively Strained Epitaxial BiFeO₃, Adv. Electron. Mater. 2, 1500204 (2016).

S. Chang, S. K. Selvaraj, Y.-Y. Choi, S. Hong, S. M. Nakhmanson, and C. G. Takoudis, Atomic layer deposition of environmentally benign SnTiO_x as a potential ferroelectric material, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 34, 01A119 (2016).

Y. Li, C. Adamo, P. Chen, P. G. Evans, S. M. Nakhmanson, W. Parker, C. E. Rowland, R. D. Schaller, D. G. Schlom, D. A. Walko, H. Wen, and Q. Zhang, Giant optical enhancement of strain gradient in ferroelectric BiFeO₃ thin films and its physical origin, Sci. Rep. 5, 16650 (2015); doi: 10.1038/srep16650.

F.-C. Sun, A. M. Dongare, A. D. Asandei, S. P. Alpay and S. Nakhmanson, Temperature dependent structural, elastic, and polar properties of ferroelectric polyvinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene copolymers, J. Mater. Chem. C 3, 8389-8396 (2015).

J. Mangeri, O. Heinonen, D. Karpeyev, and S. Nakhmanson, Influence of Elastic and Surface Strains on the Optical Properties of Semiconducting Core-Shell Nanoparticles, Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 014001 (2015).

L. Louis and S. M. Nakhmanson, Structural, vibrational, and dielectric properties of Ruddlesden-Popper Ba₂ZrO₄ from first principles, Phys. Rev. B 91, 134103 (2015).

K. C. Pitike, W. D. Parker, L. Louis, and S. M. Nakhmanson, First-principles studies of lone-pair-induced distortions in epitaxial phases of perovskite SnTiO₃ and PbTiO₃, Phys. Rev. B 91, 035112 (2015).

J. H. Lee, G. Luo, I. C. Tung, S. H. Chang, Z. Luo, M. Malshe, M. Gadre, A. Bhattacharya, S. M. Nakhmanson, J. A. Eastman, H. Hong, J. Jellinek, D. Morgan, D. D. Fong, and J. W. Freeland, Dynamic layer rearrangement during growth of layered oxide films by molecular beam epitaxy, Nature Mater. 13, 879-883 (2014).

Byounghak Lee, Serge M. Nakhmanson and Olle Heinonen, Strain induced vortex-to-uniform polarization transitions in soft-ferroelectric nanoparticles, Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 262906 (2014).

D. J. Li, S. Hong, S. Gu, Y. Choi, S. Nakhmanson, O. Heinonen, D. Karpeev and K. No, Polymer piezoelectric energy harvesters for low wind speed, Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 012902 (2014).

Additional publications