Jose Luis Mendoza-Cortes
Alma mater
Known forTheoretical Physics & Chemistry / Computational Physics / Material Science / Computational Engineering
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, Scientific Computing, Computational Mathematics
ThesisDesign of Molecules and Materials for Applications in Clean Energy, Catalysis and Molecular Machines Through Quantum Mechanics, Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo Simulations. (2012)
Doctoral advisor William A. Goddard III

Jose Luis Mendoza-Cortes is a theoretical condensed matter physicist and material scientist specializing in computational physics, materials science, chemistry, and engineering. His studies include methods for solving Schrödinger's or Dirac's equation, machine learning equations, among others. These methods include the development of computational algorithms and their mathematical properties.[1]

Because of graduate and post-graduate studies advisors, Dr. Mendoza-Cortes' academic ancestors are Marie Curie and Paul Dirac.[2] His family branch is connected to Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes and the first Viceroy of New Spain Antonio de Mendoza.

Education

Throughout his childhood, he participated in various events such as the National Olympiad for Primary Schools, and the Chemistry, Informatics, Mathematics, and Physics Olympiads. He participated in the 34th International Chemistry Olympiad at Groningen, Netherlands 2002.[3]

Jose L. Mendoza completed his B.Sc. in chemistry and physics from Tec de Monterrey (ITESM), Monterrey, Mexico in 2008. During this time, he had an interchange program in the last two years of his B.Sc. to finish all the master's degree classes at the University of California, Los Angeles. Following this, he moved to Pasadena, California to complete his M.Sc. at California Institute of Technology (CalTech)in 2010. After the completion of his M.Sc., he stayed at Caltech and completed his Ph.D. in physics in 2012. His research advisor was William Goddard III and his dissertation title is “Design of Molecules and Materials for Applications in Clean Energy, Catalysis and Molecular Machines Through Quantum Mechanics, Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo Simulations.”[4] He completed his postdoctoral studies at University of California, Berkeley.

Career

During his undergraduate studies, Dr. Mendoza was awarded the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of Science. This is AAAS's oldest and most prestigious award.

Following his graduation, Mendoza joined the California Institute of Technology & Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis as a Staff Scientist until 2013 and then as a Postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where he served until 2014. Mendoza is currently a Faculty at the Department of Physics and Astronomy & Chemical Engineering and Material Science at Michigan State University. Before this, he was affiliated as a Faculty with Florida State University at the Department of Physics, Scientific Computing, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering until 2020. During this time, he was also a scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Condensed Matter group.

His work and reputation have already led to significant national attention as he is the only researcher to be named four times in a row to the prestigious Scialog Fellowship (2020-2023) for his contributions to the development of negative emissions technologies.[5] His works on the amphidynamic behavior in oligo-functionalized covalent-organic frameworks was selected as one of the 72 articles in the 2018 Emerging Investigators collection from the Royal Society of Chemistry.[6] He was also the recipient of the GAP awards in 2018 from Florida State University for his work on creating the database to reliably predict which compounds will produce materials with the most desirable properties for a given purpose.[7]

He was part of the American Physical Society (APS) national committee on diversity and inclusion (9 persons), which developed the Bridge program; which has now expanded into the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) which is made of 30 societies (including ACS, MRS, APS), corporations, and national laboratories, which is considered one of the most influential programs in post-graduate education for minorities in the USA.[8][9]

Dr. Mendoza's research has been featured in Forbes,[10] CNBC,[11] MRS Bulletin,[12] C&EN News, Public Radio, Laser Focus World magazine, and the DOE Highlights, to name a few. This work has been disseminated across more than 60 national and international invited and keynote lectures at scientific meetings and universities all over the world.

Published Work

As an independent researcher, Dr. Mendoza-Cortes' work has been cited over 8,000 times with an average of over 148 citations/paper, as well as Erdős number = 5, H-index = 27, and i10-index = 40.[13]

Relativistic Quantum Mechanics

The nuclear waste problem can be alleviated if we can understand the heaviest elements, the actinides. Studies of actinide-containing compounds are at the frontier of the applications of current theoretical methods due to the need to consider relativistic effects and approximations to the Dirac equation in them. The Mendoza-Cortes lab contributed to creating new ways to understand relativistic effects by implementing and deploying four-component relativistic quantum calculations and scalar approximations, thus pushing the frontier of what can be done currently.[14]

The Mendoza-Cortes lab has expanded the study of relativistic effects to 2-dimensional materials, which will allow us to design and understand quantum materials, specifically topological insulators. They did this by implementing and developing the spin current density functional theory (SCDFT), which is the generalization of the standard DFT to treat a fermionic system embedded in the effective external field produced by the spin-orbit coupling interaction. They showed that the explicit account of spin currents in the electron-electron potential of the SCDFT is key to the appearance of a Dirac cone at the onset of the topological phase transition.[15]

Beyond Standard Model of Physics

In December 2023, Dr. Mendoza-Cortes and co-workers published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society a design of a diamond material that would detect a non-zero electric dipole moment in a particle, indicating physics beyond the Standard Model. The cover of the paper discusses how we understand the structure of a certain type of defect in diamond and its use in quantum applications, which was featured in the cover. [16] "Philosophical Transactions is the world's first and longest-running scientific journal", some "Famous and notable contributors" include Isaac Newton, Dorothy Hodgkin, Alan Turing, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Stephen Hawking.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy

Solar Energy - Artificial Photosynthesis. The Mendoza-Cortes lab created a new workflow for designing and predicting semiconductor structures made of abundant elements suitable for applications, especially for solar energy (i.e. photovoltaics) and photocatalytic water splitting. The methodology, named SALSA (Substitution Approximation evoLutionary Search and Ab-initio calculations), involves generating candidate structures from a database of known compounds, filtering them based on desired properties, and then employing algorithms to determine their most stable crystal structures. The study successfully identifies numerous semiconductor candidates made of earth-abundant elements with ideal properties for artificial photosynthesis, highlighting a significant advancement in the conversion of sunlight into chemical fuels. [17]

Hydrogen Storage. Dr. Mendoza-Cortes and coworkers published a breakthrough paper related to sustainable fuels, more specifically Hydrogen storage.[18] In this paper, they designed porous materials that can achieve the US Department of Energy hydrogen storage targets for 2025. These porous materials incorporated the more affordable and abundant elements often outperformed the precious metals. This promising development brings us one step closer to realizing a Hydrogen economy. This paper was featured on the Journal cover.

Future Batteries

High-voltage lithium batteries. The Mendoza-Cortes lab helped to better understand and design high-voltage lithium batteries. The breakthrough involves using cationic chain transfer agents to prevent the degradation of ether electrolytes by arresting uncontrolled polymer growth at the anode. Additionally, cathode electrolyte interphases (CEIs) composed of preformed anionic polymers and supramolecules are used to extend the high-voltage stability of these electrolytes. This study contributes to the broader field of energy storage technologies, offering methods to overcome challenges related to the stability of polymer electrolytes in high-voltage lithium batteries, thus advancing the development of more sustainable and effective energy storage solutions.[19]

Potassium Batteries. The Mendoza-Cortes lab in collaboration with the Rodriguez-Lopez labs found a way to improve the performance of potassium-ion batteries (KIBs). The research utilizes ultrathin few-layer graphene (FLG) electrodes. The FLG electrodes are preconditioned in a Li+-containing electrolyte to form a solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI). This method is aimed at improving the intercalation performance of K+ in these electrodes. The findings are considered a step forward in developing high-performance KIBs, offering a method to overcome previous challenges related to K+ intercalation in carbon-based electrodes. This research contributes to the broader field of energy storage technologies and could have implications for the development of more sustainable and cost-effective battery systems.[20]

Machine Learning and AI

The Mendoza-Cortes lab created a Machine Learning course that includes machine learning methods, quantum computing, and game development: Machine Learning guide for non-Computer Science majors with applications to Art, Engineering, Physics, Medicine, and Chemistry. Some algorithms that are covered include Neural Networks (NN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Bayesian methods, Genetic Algorithms, Decision Trees, K-Nearest-Neighbors (KNN), Non-Negative Tensor Factorization to name a few. Some of these algorithms are applied to problems in Physics, Chemistry, Art, and Medicine.[21]

Quantum Computing

The Mendoza-Cortes lab created guides for introduction to Quantum Computing. Quantum computing is one approach to obtaining answers that classical conventional computers cannot easily handle or are intractable at all. Using the power of superposition and entanglement of quantum systems, quantum algorithms have the potential to provide speed-up (exponential or quadratic) over classical algorithms. For now, the existing quantum devices are not identified as universal quantum computer but have their advantages over conventional computers. We can implement certain algorithms with a limited number of qubits in systems such as IBM Q, DWave, and Qiskit.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes - Michigan State University". www.egr.msu.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  2. ↑ "Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes - Academic Tree". academictree.org. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  3. ↑ "IChO Results". www.icho-official.org. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  4. ↑ Mendoza-Cortes, Jose Luis (2012). Design of Molecules and Materials for Applications in Clean Energy, Catalysis and Molecular Machines Through Quantum Mechanics, Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo Simulations (phd thesis). California Institute of Technology.
  5. ↑ Advancement, Research Corporation for Science. "Scialog® – NES Fellows and Facilitators". Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  6. ↑ "Contributors to the Emerging Investigators Issue 2018". Chemical Communications. 54 (50): 6442–6457. 2018-06-19. doi:10.1039/C8CC90258E. ISSN 1364-548X.
  7. ↑ Patronis, Amy Farnum (2018-01-09). "GAP awards help FSU faculty propel research from lab to market". Florida State University News. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  8. ↑ "COM- 2019-Annual-Report" (PDF).
  9. ↑ "IGEN Takes the APS Bridge Program to the Next Level". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  10. ↑ "This Chemical Discovery Is A Big Step Forward For Clean Energy". forbes.com. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  11. ↑ "Power plant: High-tech photosynthesis". cnbc.com/. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  12. ↑ "Energy Focus: New simulations suggest cost-effective materials design for H2 storage". springer.com. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  13. ↑ "Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes - Scholar Profile". scholar.google.com/. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  14. ↑ "Relativistic quantum calculations to understand the contribution of f-type atomic orbitals and chemical bonding of actinides with organic ligands". Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 25 (7): 5592–5601. 2023-01-12. arXiv:2108.06057. doi:10.1039/D2CP05399C. ISSN 1463-9076.
  15. ↑ "Role of spin currents on electron-electron interaction in the quantum spin Hall phase". Physical Review B. 106 (20): L201109. 2022-11-17. arXiv:2208.13878. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.106.L201109. ISSN 2469-9950.
  16. ↑ "Rare isotope-containing diamond colour centres for fundamental symmetry tests". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 382 (2264): 1–17. 2023-12-04. doi:10.1098/rsta.2023.0169. ISSN 1471-2962. PMC 10693981.
  17. ↑ "Transforming materials discovery for artificial photosynthesis: High-throughput screening of earth-abundant semiconductors". Journal of Applied Physics. 134 (23): 1–11. 2023-11-28. arXiv:2310.00118. doi:10.1063/5.0178907. ISSN 1089-7550.
  18. ↑ "Multi-Binding Sites United in Covalent-Organic Frameworks (MSUCOF) for H2 Storage and Delivery at Room Temperature". Energy & Fuels. 37 (24): 1–10. 2023-11-28. arXiv:2306.10036. doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.3c04075. ISSN 1520-5029.
  19. ↑ "Stabilizing polymer electrolytes in high-voltage lithium batteries". Nature Communications. 10 (3091): 1–11. 2019-07-12. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11015-0. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6626095.
  20. ↑ "Achieving Fast and Efficient K+ Intercalation on Ultrathin Graphene Electrodes Modified by a Li+ Based Solid-Electrolyte Interphase". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140 (42): 13599–13603. 2018-10-08. doi:10.1021/jacs.8b08907. ISSN 0002-7863.
  21. 1 2 "Machine Learning guide for Humans". mendozacortesgroup.github.io. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
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