Professor Andrew J Morris M.Phys, PhD

School of Metallurgy and Materials
Professor of Computational Physics

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 3428
Email: a.j.morris.1@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @condensedmatter

Address: School of Metallurgy and Materials
ID27
Edgbaston
Birmingham

Andrew Morris is a Professor of Computational Physics. His research group uses and develops quantum mechanical techniques for predicting the structure and properties of new materials using a computer.

He is lead developer of the OptaDOS computer programme - developed for predicting EELS and XANES spectra of materials from first principles calculations. Please visit the A. J. Morris Group website to find out more about his research.

Qualifications

PhD in Physics, University of Cambridge, UK, 2009
MPhys in Theoretical Physics, University of York, UK, 2006

Postgraduate supervision

Density-functional theory, battery applications, first principles modelling and spectroscopy.

Research

Andrew’s current interest is in applying the AIRSS method to a range of different materials science problems, focussing mainly on lithium-ion batteries. "Trial and error" plays a large part in the discovery of new materials. From the initial idea, the material must be synthesised and categorised before it can be tested which is slow, difficult and expensive. High-throughput computation accelerates this process by suggesting then screening new materials, allowing us to ask "what if?" without the time and expense of manufacturing and categorizing samples. His group models Li-ion batteries at the atomic level and try to uncover new materials to increase their capacity.

He uses global search techniques such as AIRSS to predict the ground-state structure of materials. From the ground state his research group uses theoretical spectroscopy techniques to compare their results to experiment. As a junior developer of the electronic structure code CASTEP and a member of the UK Car-Parinello consortium, he develops tools for optics, electron-energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and core-loss analysis through the OptaDOS code. He uses and modifies CASTEP-NMR to calculate the chemical shielding of battery materials in collaboration with experimentalists.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Banerjee, H, Grey, CP & Morris, AJ 2025, 'Demystifying charge-compensation mechanisms and oxygen dimerization in Li-rich Li₂NiO₃ cathodes †', Journal of Materials Chemistry A, vol. 13, no. 31, pp. 25375-25383. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5ta03794h

Durán-Egido, V, Darby, JP, Cliffe, MJ, Garitaonandia, JS, Grande-Fernández, P, Morris, AJ, Carretero-González, J & Castillo martinez, E 2025, 'Easily Water‐Synthesisable Iron‐Chloranilate Frameworks as High Energy and High‐Power Cathodes for Sustainable Alkali‐Ion Batteries', Angewandte Chemie (International Edition) . https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202424416

Ko, SL, Dorrell, JA, Alter, ED, Ta, AC, Morris, AJ & Griffith, KJ 2025, 'Extreme Defect Tolerance for Electrochemical Intercalation in Wadsley-Roth Structures Demonstrated by Metastable NaNb₇O₁₈', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 147, no. 10, pp. 8513–8522. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c16977

Chen, RLB, Sayed, FN, Banerjee, H, Temprano, I, Wan, J, Morris, AJ & Grey, CP 2025, 'Identification of the dual roles of Al₂O₃ coatings on NMC811-cathodes via theory and experiment', Energy & Environmental Science, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 1879-1900. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4EE03444A

Ko, SL, Dorrell, JA, Morris, AJ & Griffith, KJ 2025, 'Metastable layered lithium-rich niobium and tantalum oxides via nearly instantaneous cation exchange†', Faraday Discussions, vol. 255, pp. 429-450. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4FD00103F

Ramesh, N, Banerjee, H, Swallow, JEN, Björklund, E, Dean, A, Didwal, P, Fraser, M, Phelan, CME, An, L, Singh, J, Lewis, J, Song, W, House, RA, Morris, AJ, Weatherup, RS & Nicholls, RJ 2024, 'Atomistic Interpretation of the Oxygen K-Edge X-ray Absorption Spectra of Layered Li-Ion Battery Cathode Materials', Chemistry of Materials, vol. 36, no. 22, pp. 11051-11064. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.4c01870

Pitcairn, J, Ongkiko, MA, Iliceto, A, Speakman, PJ, Calder, S, Cochran, MJ, Paddison, JAM, Liu, C, Argent, SP, Morris, AJ & Cliffe, MJ 2024, 'Controlling Noncollinear Ferromagnetism in van der Waals Metal–Organic Magnets', Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, no. 28, pp. 19146-19159. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c04102

Bergsma, J, Merkys, A, Andersen, C, Andersson, OB, Beltrán, D, Blokhin, E, Boland, TM, Balderas, RC, Choudhary, K, Díaz, AD, García, RD, Eckert, H, Eimre, K, Montero, MEF, Krajewski, AM, Mortensen, JJ, Duarte, JMN, Pietryga, J, Qi, J, Carrillo, FDJT, Vaitkus, A, Yu, J, Zettel, A, Castro, PBD, Carlsson, JM, Cerqueira, TFT, Divilov, S, Hajiyani, H, Hanke, F, Jose, K, Oses, C, Riebesell, J, Schmidt, J, Winston, D, Xie, C, Yang, X, Bonella, S, Botti, S, Curtarolo, S, Draxl, C, Fuentes-Cobas, LEE, Hospital, A, Liu, Z-K, Marques, MAL, Marzari, N, Morris, AJ, Ong, SP, Orozco, M, Persson, KA, Thygesen, KS, Wolverton, CM, Scheidgen, M, Toher, C, Conduit, G, Pizzi, G, Gražulis, S, Rignanese, G-M, Armiento, R & Evans, ML 2024, 'Developments and applications of the OPTIMADE API for materials discovery, design, and data exchange', Digital Discovery. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4DD00039K

Banerjee, H, Aichhorn, M, Grey, CP & Morris, AJ 2024, 'Insulating behaviour in room temperature rhombohedral LiNiO₂ cathodes is driven by dynamic correlation', Journal of Physics: Energy, vol. 6, no. 4, 045003. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7655/ad7980

Comment/debate

Banerjee, H & Morris, AJ 2024, 'Publisher Correction: Theoretical approaches to study degradation in Li-ion battery cathodes: Crucial role of exchange and correlation (Journal of Materials Research, (2024), 10.1557/s43578-024-01408-3)', Journal of Materials Research, pp. 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-024-01446-x

Letter

Shah, NA, Páez Fajardo, GJ, Banerjee, H, Pandey, GC, Menon, AS, Ans, M, Majherova, V, Bree, G, Bolloju, S, Grinter, DC, Ferrer, P, Thakur, PK, Lee, TL, Loveridge, MJ, Morris, AJ, Grey, CP & Piper, LFJ 2025, 'Nature of the Oxygen-Loss-Induced Rocksalt Layer and Its Impact on Capacity Fade in Ni-Rich Layered Oxide Cathodes', ACS Energy Letters, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1313-1320. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.5c00324

Ahad, SA, Owen, C, Patil, NN, Adegoke, TE, Downing, C, Ryan, KM, Singh, S, Morris, AJ & Geaney, H 2025, 'Synergistic Li-Na co-alloying for high-capacity, long-life, dual-alkali ion batteries', Nano Energy, vol. 145, 111443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2025.111443

Preprint

Nicusan, A-L, Werner, D, Branford, S, Hartley, S, Morris, AJ & Windows-Yule, K 2025 'AcceleratedKernels.jl: Cross-Architecture Parallel Algorithms from a Unified, Transpiled Codebase' arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.16710

Kolodzeiski, P, Gallant, BM, Richter, L, Ongkiko, MAT, Franke, C, Kostka, A, Xue, W-L, Das, C, Weiß, J-B, Kolodzeiski, E, Kress, T, Kieslich, G, Li, T, Morris, AJ, Kubicki, D & Henke, S 2025 'Sodium-Ion-Modified Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework Glasses' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-3m7vv

Review article

Banerjee, H & Morris, AJ 2025, 'Theoretical approaches to study degradation in Li-ion battery cathodes: Crucial role of exchange and correlation', Journal of Materials Research, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 2-35. https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-024-01408-3

View all publications in research portal