Marco BRASINI

After my bacherlor degree in Physics, I graduated in Material Physics and Nanoscience at the University of Bologna, and in Sciences des Materiaux et Nano-Objets at the Sorbonne University within the framework of double-title degree. During my internship at the IPGP, I had the opportunity of studying from the computational point of view a superionic water-ice. The fashion for this exotic phenomenon motivated me to join the Destiny PhD program, in order to put my knowledges in a research field which can have a strong impact on our everyday life and sustain the green energy transition, like the sodium battery field.
Actually, my research activity consists in the study of sodium diffusion in NaSICON electrolyte for sodium solid-state batteries. The aim of the project is to shed light on some of the most challenging issues concerning the sodium diffusion from an ab-initio point of view. The main topics are the rational choice of dopants to increase the ionic conductivity in the material bulk, and the understanding of the solid/solid interface effects, like the grain boundaries or the electrode-electrolyte interface
.The computational approach of the research is coherent with my material physics formation. For the research I make use of different techniques, like the Density Functional Theory (DFT), Statistical Thermodynamics and Stochastic processes, in order to build a multi-scale understanding of the sodium diffusion from the atomic to the microscale level.