Sergei V. Kalinin

Sergei V. Kalinin is the Weston Fulton Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Education
Kalinin graduated with M.S. from Department of Materials Science, Moscow State University, Russia in 1998. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 under Prof. Dawn Bonnell.

Career
He has been a research staff member at ORNL since October 2004 (Senior since 2007, Distinguished since 2013, Corporate Fellow since 2020 and Group Leader at CNMS). Previously he was Theme leader for Electronic and Ionic Functionality at CNMS, ORNL (2007– 2015). He was a recipient of Eugene P. Wigner Fellowship (2002 - 2004).

He became Joint faculty at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville in December 2010. He also became adjunct professor at Sung Kyun Kwan University in January 2013.

From March 2022 to February 2023 he worked at Amazon as special projects principal scientist. After his assignment at Amazon he resumed his role at University of Tennessee, Knoxville as the Weston Fulton Chair Professor in the department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Big data in physics and atom by atom fabrication
Kalinin's research applies machine learning and artificial intelligence to nanometer scale and atomically resolved imaging data, aiming to extract physics of atomic, molecular, and mesoscale interactions and enable real-time feedback for controlled matter modification, patterning, and atom by atom fabrication. The research builds on modern electron and scanning probe microscopies, which provide high-veracity information on the structure and functionalities of solids. Kalinin has developed frameworks for information capture, crowd-sourced analysis, and physics extraction from imaging tools. His research aims to extract simple physical parameters from imaging data and establish causative relationships between materials properties and functionalities. Kalinin and colleagues believe that electron microscopy can transition from a purely imaging tool to a new paradigm of atomic matter control and quantum computing, enabled via atom by atom fabrication by electron beams.

Kalinin has proposed the concept of Atomic Forge, the use of the sub-atomically focused beam of Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy for atomic manipulation and atom by atom assembly.

Nanoelectromechanics and piezoresponse force microscopy
Kalinin has contributed to the field of nanoscale electromechanics, exploring the coupling between electrical and mechanical phenomena on the nanoscale. He has made significant contributions to piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM), including the first PFM imaging in liquid and vacuum, PFM of biological tissues, and the observation of nanoscale ferroelectricity in molecular systems. He has also pioneered the development of spectroscopic imaging modes for PFM, allowing visualization of polarization switching on the sub-10 nanometer level and establishing the resolution and contrast transfer mechanisms of domain walls and spectroscopy. Kalinin led the team that pioneered the BE principle for force-based scanning probe microscopes, enabling quantitative capture of probe-material interactions. His multidimensional, multimodal spectroscopies have enabled quantitative studies of polarization dynamics and mechanical effects accompanying switching in ferroelectrics. Kalinin's work has revealed the critical role of electrochemical phenomena on ferroelectric surfaces and the emergence of chaos and intermittency during domain switching and shape symmetry breaking. His recent work includes the development of the basic theory and phase-field formulation for domain evolution and the exploration of the coupled electrochemical-ferroelectric states.

Awards and honors
He is a recipient of:


 * Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2009
 * Blavatnik Award Laureate (2018) and Finalist (2016, 17)
 * IEEE-UFFC Ferroelectrics Young Investigator Award in 2010
 * Burton medal of Microscopy Society of America in 2010
 * ISIF Young Investigator Award in 2009,
 * American Vacuum Society 2008 Peter Mark Memorial Award
 * 2003 Ross Coffin Award and 2009 Robert L. Coble Awards of American Ceramics Society
 * RMS medal for Scanning Probe Microscopy (2015)
 * R&D100 Awards (2008, 2010, 2016, 2018, and 2023)
 * Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology - Experimental category in 2022
 * Peter Duncumb Award for excellence in microanalysis, Microanalysis Society (2024)

He was named a fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (2024), AAAS (2024), Materials Research Society (2017), Foresight Institute (2017), MRS (2016), AVS (2015), APS (2015), and a senior member (2015) and Fellow (2017) of IEEE.

He is a member of editorial boards for Nanotechnology, Journal of Applied Physics/Applied Physics Letters, and Nature Partner Journal Computational Materials.