Eric Stach

Professor Eric Stach

Prior to his appointment at Penn, Eric held a number of different positions, including Electron Microscopy Group Leader at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Associate and then appointed Full Professor at Purdue University, and Staff Scientist and Principal Investigator at the National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

His research interests focus on the development and application of electron microscopy techniques to solve a wide range of materials problems, with most recent emphasis on catalysis, energy storage materials, solar photovoltaics and nanostructure growth. The Stach lab utilizes advanced characterization techniques – primarily electron and ion microscopy – to correlate the atomic, nano- and mesoscale structure of materials to their processing conditions, their fundamental properties and their overall performance.

Their work centers around the development of novel in-situ and operando methods. With these approaches they use microscopes to obtain imaging, diffraction and spectroscopy data from materials in their native environments, preferably as they function. In particular, operando (“in a working condition”) experiments allow direct links between structure, processing, properties and performance in an explicit way, making this approach extremely powerful.