David Flannigan

Professor David Flannigan leads the Ultrafast Electron Microscopy (UEM) Research Group at the University of Minnesota's Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. His work focuses on developing and applying UEM to study atomic-scale structural and electronic dynamics in materials.

• University of Minnesota (2010–present)
• Graduate Faculty, Chemical Physics Program
• Member, Minnesota Institute for Ultrafast Science (MIUS)

Research interests span:

• Non-equilibrium electronic/structural dynamics
• Defect-laden energy transport materials
• Strongly-correlated material phase transitions
• In situ laser-induced phase transformations
• Ultrafast magnetic switching phenomena
• Quantum nanoscale energy coupling

Recent publications analyze photoemission geometry effects, coherent phonon dynamics, and radiation damage mitigation in 4D UEM. His lab has developed custom tools like UEMtomaton and UEMview for UEM data analysis.

• NSF: Radiation Damage Mitigation in Soft Matter
• AIP SciLight Feature: Phonon Dynamics Imaging
• Chem. Phys. Chem Front Cover: 2025
• Student Scholar Awards: 2018–2021
• Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships: Multiple recipients

He has mentored 15 Ph.D. students and 3 M.S. students, with alumni now at institutions including NASA, 3M, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. His UEM lab features a custom 224sqft vibration isolation slab and a 200kV Tecnai Femto UEM platform with PHAROS Femtosecond LASER systems.