David Mitzi

Simon Family Distinguished Professor

David Mitzi received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Physics from Princeton University in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1990.  Prior to joining the faculty at Duke in 2014, Dr. Mitzi spent 23 years at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, where his focus was on the search for and application of new electronic materials, including organic-inorganic perovskites and inorganic materials for photovoltaic, LED, transistor and memory applications.  For his final five years at IBM, he served as manager for the Photovoltaic Science and Technology Department, where he initiated and managed a multi-company program to develop a low-cost, high-throughput approach to deposit thin-film chalcogenide-based absorber layers for high-efficiency solar cells. Dr. Mitzi’s current research interests involve making emerging photovoltaic materials more effective, cost-efficient and competitive for the energy market. He holds a number of patents, and has authored or coauthored more than 200 papers and book chapters.

Appointments and Affiliations

• Simon Family Distinguished Professor
• Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
• Professor of Chemistry

Contact Information

• Office Location: Box 90300 Hudson Hall, Durham, NC 27708-0300
• Office Phone: +1 919 660 5356
• Email Address: david.mitzi@duke.edu
• Websites:
  • Mitzi group website
  • Google Scholar - David B. Mitzi

Education

• Ph.D. Stanford University, 1990
• B.S. Princeton University, 1985

Research Interests

Making emerging photovoltaic materials more effective, cost-efficient and competitive for the energy market.

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher . Clarivate Analytics. 2023
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher . Clarivate Analytics. 2022
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher . Clarivate Analytics. 2021
• ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials. American Chemical Society. 2020
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher . Clarivate Analytics. 2020
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher. Clarivate Analytics. 2019
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher. Clarivate Analytics. 2018
• MRS Fellow. Materials Research Society. 2018

Courses Taught

• MSEG 591: Independent Study
• ME 592: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
• ME 591: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
• ME 562: Materials Synthesis and Processing
• ME 555: Advanced Topics in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 516: Thin-Film Photovoltaic Technology
• ME 492: Special Projects in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 491: Special Projects in Mechanical Engineering
• EGR 393: Research Projects in Engineering
• ECE 391: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering

In the News

• From Junkyards to a Lab: Grad Student’s Curiosity of Solar Energy (Feb 22, 2024 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Which Duke Scholars Made the Most Cited List? (Nov 16, 2023 | Duke Research Blog)
• Building a Better Solar Cell (Sep 25, 2023 | Duke Science and Technology)
• Chiral Ingredients Split Electron Spins in Hybrid Semiconductors (Oct 13, 2020 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Six Duke Engineers Among Global Highly Cited (Nov 20, 2019 | Pratt School of Engineering )
• Global List of Highly Cited Puts Duke in Top Ten (Nov 19, 2019)
• Professors, Alumna Honored by American Chemical Society (Aug 27, 2019)
• Duke Faculty Plentiful On ‘Highly Cited’ List (Nov 27, 2018)
• Supercomputer Predicts Optical and Thermal Properties of Complex Hybrid Materials (Oct 8, 2018 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Pratt Researchers Join National Effort to Unlock New Energy Technologies (Aug 23, 2018 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Duke Engineers Join National Center on Emerging Energy Materials (Aug 21, 2018)
• Mitzi Elected to Materials Research Society Fellows (Feb 10, 2018 | Pratt School of Engineering)
• Energy Initiative Awards Seven New Seed Grants (Apr 28, 2017)
• Duke Awards Distinguished Professorships, Inducts New Bass Society Members (May 5, 2016)
• Duke Initiative Brings a Lot of Energy to Research (May 12, 2015 | Duke Research Blog)
• Mitzi Awarded SunShot Initiative Funding to Improve Thin-Film Solar Cell Materials (Oct 23, 2014 | Duke Today)

Representative Publications

• Haque, MA; Grieder, A; Harvey, SP; Brunecky, R; Ye, JY; Addison, B; Zhang, J; Dong, Y; Xie, Y; Hautzinger, MP; Walpitage, HH; Zhu, K; Blackburn, JL; Vardeny, ZV; Mitzi, DB; Berry, JJ; Marder, SR; Ping, Y; Beard, MC; Luther, JM, Remote chirality transfer in low-dimensional hybrid metal halide semiconductors., Nature chemistry (2024) [10.1038/s41557-024-01662-2] [abs].
• Wang, S; Zhang, Y; Halasyamani, PS; Mitzi, DB, Chirality and Solvent Coassist the Structural Evolution of Hybrid Manganese Chlorides with Second-Harmonic-Generation Response., Inorganic chemistry, vol 63 no. 35 (2024), pp. 16121-16127 [10.1021/acs.inorgchem.4c02588] [abs].
• Singh, A; Dayton, D; Ladd, DM; Reuveni, G; Paluch, P; Montagne, L; Mars, J; Yaffe, O; Toney, M; Manjunatha Reddy, GN; Mitzi, DB, Local Structure in Crystalline, Glass and Melt States of a Hybrid Metal Halide Perovskite., Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol 146 no. 37 (2024), pp. 25656-25668 [10.1021/jacs.4c07411] [abs].
• Xie, Y; Koknat, G; Weadock, NJ; Wang, X; Song, R; Toney, MF; Blum, V; Mitzi, DB, Hydrogen Bonding Analysis of Structural Transition-Induced Symmetry Breaking and Spin Splitting in a Hybrid Perovskite Employing a Synergistic Diffraction-DFT Approach., Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol 146 no. 32 (2024), pp. 22509-22521 [10.1021/jacs.4c06287] [abs].
• Xie, Y; Hewa-Walpitage, H; Morgenstein, J; Blum, V; Vardeny, ZV; Mitzi, DB, Homochiral and Heterochiral Cation Mixing in 2D Perovskites for Enhanced Structural Asymmetry and Spin Splitting, ACS Materials Letters, vol 6 no. 7 (2024), pp. 3161-3167 [10.1021/acsmaterialslett.4c00558] [abs].