Andrej Singer | Cornell Duffield Engineering

Graduate Field Affiliations: Materials Science and Engineering; Physics

Biography

Andrej Singer received his Ph.D. in physics (2012) from the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he studied the coherence properties of new x-ray sources under Profs. Edgar Weckert and Ivan Vartanyants. Following postdoctoral work with Oleg Shpyrko at UC San Diego, he joined the faculty of the Cornell Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 2017.

Research Interests

Our group uses advanced x-ray characterization to probe complex nanomaterials during operation and harness mesoscale phenomena for enhanced functionality. We focus on understanding interactions that govern electrocatalytic activity and durability, studying ion intercalation and transport in energy storage materials using x-ray imaging and diffraction, and using free-electron lasers to induce and interrogate novel states in quantum materials.

Advanced Materials
Energy systems
Nanotechnology
Energy and environment

Teaching Interests

Structure of materials, mechanical properties, advanced x-ray characterization, and kinetics of materials

Select Publications

J. J. Huang, Y. Yang, D. Weinstock, C. R. Bundschu, J. P.C. Ruff, T. A. Arias, H. D. Abruña, and A. Singer, “Multimodal Operando X-ray Mechanistic Studies of a Bimetallic Oxide Electrocatalyst in Alkaline Media” Nature Catalysis 8, 116 (2025).
Anita Verma, Denis Golež, Oleg Yu. Gorobtsov, Kelson Kaj, Ryan Russell, Jeffrey Z Kaaret, Erik Lamb, Guru Khalsa, Hari P. Nair, Yifei Sun, Ryan Bouck, Nathaniel Schreiber, Jacob P. Ruf, Varun Ramaprasad, Yuya Kubota, Tadashi Togashi, Vladimir A. Stoica, Hari Padmanabhan, John W. Freeland, Nicole A. Benedek, Oleg Shpyrko, John W. Harter, Richard D. Averitt, Darrell G. Schlom, Kyle M. Shen, Andrew J. Millis, and Andrej Singer, “Picosecond volume expansion drives a later-time insulator–metal transition in a nano-textured Mott insulator” Nat. Phys. (2024).
Ziming Shao, Noah Schnitzer, Jacob Ruf, Oleg Y. Gorobtsov, Cheng Dai, Berit H Goodge, Tiannan Yang, Hari Nair, Vlad A. Stoica, John W Freeland, Jacob Ruff, Long-Qing Chen, Darrell G. Schlom, Kyle M. Shen, Lena F. Kourkoutis, and Andrej Singer, “Real-space imaging of polar and elastic nano-textures in thin films via inversion of diffraction data” PNAS 120, e2303312120 (2023).
J. J. Huang, D. Weinstock, H. Hirsh, R. Bouck, M. Zhang, O. Yu. Gorobtsov, M. Okamura, R. Harder, W. Cha, J. P. C. Ruff, Y. S. Meng, and A. Singer, “Disorder Dynamics in Battery Nanoparticles During Phase Transitions Revealed by Operando Single-Particle Diffraction”Advanced Energy Materials, 12, 2103521 (2022).
D. Weinstock, H. S. Hirsh, O. Yu Gorobtsov, M. Zhang, J. Huang, R. Bouck, J. P. C. Ruff, Y. S. Meng, A. Singer, “Structure-selective operando x-ray spectroscopy”ACS Energy Letters 7, 261-266 (2021).