Mercouri Kanatzidis


Mercouri Kanatzidis is a Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University and Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.
Kanatzidis was listed as one of the most cited researchers in Materials Science and Engineering in 2016 based on Elsevier Scopus data. He has published over 1,300 manuscripts and has over 30 patents. As of May 2018, Mercouri Kanatzidis has mentored over 56 Ph.D. students and nearly 90 postdoctoral fellows. More than 50 of these alumni hold academic positions worldwide.

Early life and education

Kanatzidis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. He received his B.S. degree from Aristotle University in 1979 and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1984 . He spent two years at the University of Iowa from 1980-1982 and then moved to the University of Michigan when Coucouvanis moved there in 1982. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University where he worked with Professor Tobin J. Marks on conductive polymers and intercalation compounds. He became assistant professor at Michigan State University in 1987. He was promoted to full Professor in 1994. He moved to Northwestern University in 2006.

Research

Kanatzidis has developed synthesis methodologies for the design and discovery of new chalcogenide materials and intermetallics. He is known for the elaboration of flux synthesis techniques which allow reactions to proceed at lower temperatures than otherwise would and can lead to new structures and compositions. From his research, metal sulfide ion-exchangers have been discovered. They are effective materials in heavy metal remediation of industrial waste waters.
Kanatzidis’ ideas on nanostructured thermoelectrics have had a strong impact in thermoelectric research and these ideas are now the new paradigm followed by researchers worldwide. He developed effective strategies for achieving "nanostructuring" in bulk thermoelectric semiconductors. This led to high performance materials e.g. AgPbmSbTe2+m, PbTe-PbS and PbTe-SrTe.
Nanostructured thermoelectric materials possess coherently embedded nanodots in PbTe. The nanodots efficiently scatter heat carrying phonons and add to the other modes of scattering effectively lowering the thermal conductivity in some cases by >70% while allowing high electrical conductivity, giving a very high ZT of >2.2.
Kanatzidis, along with fellow researcher Professor Robert P.H. Chang at Northwestern, developed a new solar cell that uses tin instead of lead perovskite. They published the first paper employing a halide perovskite CsSnI3 in an all solid state dye-sensitized Gratzel cell with ~10% efficiency. He was first to demonstrate functioning CH3NH3SnI3 based solar cells.
In 2016 Kanatzidis and Mohite showed that 2D iodide perovskites form films with vertical slab orientation and demonstrating >12% efficiency in a solar cell with far better stability than corresponding 3D MAPbI3-based solar cells.  2D iodide perovskites are now widely used as mixtures of 2D/3D perovskites for solar cells exhibit both high stability and exceptional efficiency.
Kanatzidis has proposed ideas and concepts for predictive synthesis. For example, he demonstrated that certain systems of A/M/M’/Q are "infinitely adaptive" and can yield new compounds, for almost any stoichiometry. This concept uses homologous superseries as a predictable path to new materials. Examples include as Cs4, CsPbmBi3Te5+m, Am2m, and nm.
Kanatzidis refers to these homologous superseries as "compound generating machines".
Kanatzidis invented a new class of materials called chalcogels. These are unique inorganic compounds that are aerogels. Using ligand metathesis chemistry, he reported experimental conditions suitable to create gels and avoid the undesirable precipitates. The chalcogels are built like a sponge, and can soak up many heavy-metal atoms from polluted water. And because the chalcogels pack an enormous surface area into a tiny volume, small pieces can clear out thousands of liters of water. For example, the chalcogels reduce mercury, lead and cadmium concentrations down to ppt levels. Biomimetic chalcogels containing Fe4S4 clusters were reported to reduce photochemically N2 to NH3.
Recent approaches include the development of panoramic synthesis. Traditional materials synthesis is often performed ex situ: the products are only examined after the reaction has completed. He and his group have used x-ray scattering to monitor materials synthesis reactions in situ. With a single experiment all phases in a given combination can be detected. This offers a panoramic view of all the phases present. "Panoramic synthesis" promises to unravel the mechanisms of how new materials form.

Awards and honors