TCM
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Phil Hasnip

Dr Phil Hasnip

Dr Phil Hasnip

Visitor in Prof Payne's group

Email: pjh1003 @ cam.ac.uk
Personal web site

TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory
19 JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge, CB3 0HE UK.

Research Group

  • Nick Woods
  • Matthew Smith
  • Genadi Naydenov (York)
  • Alban d'Harcourt (York)
Also works with Arjen Tamerus (HPCS) and Matt Probert (York).

Research

My research primarily focuses on the development of the materials modelling program CASTEP. CASTEP is a high-performance first-principles simulation program which uses density functional theory (DFT) to predict the behaviour of real material and chemical systems. I work on most aspects of CASTEP's core functionality, including its algorithms, optimisation, parallel efficiency and software sustainability. By developing new methods, and optimising existing ones, I aim to extend the range of systems that can be simulated practically.

My present projects include:

I am a keen advocate of sound software engineering in computational science, and in addition to developing CASTEP I also train and encourage computational scientists in good practice and principles, such as:

In Plain English

I use computers to predict the properties of real materials and chemicals. These predictions can be used to design new materials and experiments, or to help explain the behaviour of existing materials and experiments. They can also be invaluable in studying systems where experiments are impractical, unaffordable or even completely impossible such as the behaviour of gases in the core of large gas giants, for example Jupiter.