Bio

Carlos Diaz-Marin is an Assistant Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He leads the Diaz Energy Lab on Theory and Advanced materials (DELTA) Group, which studies and leverages soft matter for applications in energy, water, and sustainability. The group integrates fundamental studies of material-molecule/ion interactions, synthesis, characterization, modeling, and device demonstration, while guided by technoeconomic analyses, for applications such as water production from air, carbon capture, building energy efficiency, biomass utilization, critical mineral recovery, and electrochemistry.

Before coming to Stanford, Carlos was an ARPA-E ORISE Fellow at the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) within the US Department of Energy, helping develop research funding programs in high-risk, high-reward energy and sustainability technologies. Carlos obtained his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT and double undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Physics from the University of Costa Rica.

Academic Appointments

Professional Education

  • PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineerng (2024)
  • MS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering (2021)
  • BS, Universidad de Costa Rica, Physics (2019)
  • BS, Universidad de Costa Rica, Mechanical Engineering (2018)

Contact

  • Academic
    cdiazm@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Energy Science & Engineering Position: Assistant Professor

Additional Info

Links

2025-26 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • Flipping the switch: carbon-negative and water-positive data centers through waste heat utilization ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Diaz-Marin, C. D., Berquist, Z. J. 2025

    View details for DOI 10.1039/d5ee02676h

    View details for Web of Science ID 001552286500001

  • Capillary Transfer of Self-Assembled Colloidal Crystals. Nano letters Díaz-Marín, C. D., Li, D., Vázquez-Cosme, F. J., Pajovic, S., Cha, H., Song, Y., Kilpatrick, C., Vaartstra, G., Wilson, C. T., Boriskina, S., Wang, E. N. 2023

    Abstract

    Colloidal self-assembly has attracted significant interest in numerous applications including optics, electrochemistry, thermofluidics, and biomolecule templating. To meet the requirements of these applications, numerous fabrication methods have been developed. However, these are limited to narrow ranges of feature sizes, are incompatible with many substrates, and/or have low scalability, significantly limiting the use of colloidal self-assembly. In this work, we study the capillary transfer of colloidal crystals and demonstrate that this approach overcomes these limitations. Enabled by capillary transfer, we fabricate 2D colloidal crystals with nano-to-micro feature sizes spanning 2 orders of magnitude and on typically challenging substrates including those that are hydrophobic, rough, curved, or structured with microchannels. We developed and systemically validated a capillary peeling model, elucidating the underlying transfer physics. Due to its high versatility, good quality, and simplicity, this approach can expand the possibilities of colloidal self-assembly and enhance the performance of applications using colloidal crystals.

    View details for DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04896

    View details for PubMedID 36802577

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1890-4863