Physics of Data & Societal Challenges

Organic inorganic hybrid halide perovskites (PSCs) have emerged as promising class of materials for solar cells. Thanks to their remarkable optical properties such as high absorption coefficient, tunable bandgap, high charge carrier mobility and low exciton binding energy, PSCs facilitate high power conversion efficiencies (PCE). Indeed, the PCEs of PSCs have rapidly risen since 2009 from 3.8% to a certified 26.2% in 2022. Most of these rapid advances are due to changes in the preparation conditions, however the connection to the underlying processes at the atomic level is basically missing.  Computer simulation can in principle elucidate the atomistic mechanisms behind these phenomena, but the systems involved are highly complex involving multiple species and high activation barriers. Our approach entails the development and application of theoretical and multiscale computational modeling spanning the electronic and atomistic length scales. Classical molecular dynamics (MD) is embedded with ab-initio MD and density functional theory simulations to have an outright description of the physics behind the mechanisms responsible for long-term stability and improvement of the optical properties for PSCs.

Over the last years, network theory has been revealed to be a convenient and flexible framework to characterize and model the structure and dynamics of complex systems. A wide range of disciplines, from socio-technical to natural sciences, face common questions when their objects of study can be represented as networks. One of them is the robustness and resilience of interconnected systems to perturbations and malfunctions. In this seminar, I will provide a general and comprehensive overview of the main strands of research on network dismantling. Emphasis will be put on how to quantify robustness by combining mathematical techniques and AI-assisted tools.

We have all come to realize recently that there is a before and after ChatGPT, the algorithms created for the new large “language model”. This is especially true for the fields of AI, CS, Data Science, and ML, but in other ways also for social sciences, humanities, and industry. Many of these changes are relevant to the work we do, and LLMs will change it forever.

In his talk, Dirk will explain the revolutionary ideas behind ChatGPT and their history. He will also give his take on how these new tools change possibilities for research and society, and what to be aware of when using them. He will discuss the worries and concerns as well as the new possibilities emerging every day.

Understanding and predicting the weather and climate variability is fascinating as much as challenging. Here we highlight some of the key aspects associated with the study of this subject, and describe the hierarchy of models that are currently employed to disentangle such a complex problem. The potential applications will also be discussed, with a specific focus on the energy sector.