Symposium FE
Advances in Materials and Technologies for Efficient Direct Thermal-to-Electrical Energy Conversion

This symposium will explore state-of-the-art thermoelectric, thermoionic and thermophotovoltaic materials and technologies for direct thermal to electric energy conversion. Material and device designs directed to optimise efficiency and cost/performance aspects of direct thermal-to-electric conversion will be enlightened with emphasis on tailoring engineering electrical, thermal and optical properties to the demand coming from applications. 

Focus will be on direct conversion into electricity of the waste heat emitted by a number of sources such as industrial furnaces, power plants, automobile exhausts, geothermal heat sources, and of the thermal energy harvested from the warmth of sun’s rays. Covered will be materials issues such as : theoretical studies on band structure, crystal chemistry, transport properties, energy transfer processes, etc.; novel synthesis and processing routes for polycrystalline and single crystal bulk materials, nanostructured materials, 3-D architectures, composites and nanocomposites; low dimensionality structures such as thin films, superlattices, quantum dots and nanofibers; advanced characterisation of electrical, optical, thermal and mechanical properties. 

Device design and performance and system integration will be enlightened for ongoing or forthcoming applications in a range of energy conversion technologies ,i.e. from the order of several kilowatt that one expects to recover from the waste heat of industrial and power plants, to the intermediate range of hundred watt involved in automobile systems or deep-space probes, to remote self-powered systems for wireless communications in the microwatt power range. 

Emerging ideas and proposal studies of novel concepts for direct thermal-to-electrical energy conversion working in tandem with other energy conversion technologies (i.e. fuel cells, PV-TE hybrid systems, etc.) will be interesting topics to enrich the debate.

Sessions topics

 

FE-1 Theoretical Concepts and Basic Approaches for High Efficiency Thermal-to-Electrical Energy Conversion

Band structure
Crystal chemistry
Transport properties
Energy transfer processes
Nanoscale induced effects
Modeling and simulation 

FE-2 New and Improved Materials and Low Dimensionality Structures

TE materials, i.e. half-Heusler alloys, clathrades, skutterudites, oxides, silicides zintls, other high temperature materials
Materials for thermionic applications, i.e. embedded q-dot structures, wide band gap semiconductors, etc.
Emitter materials and PV diode materials for thermophotovoltaics 
Polycrystalline and single crystal high efficiency bulk materials
Thin films and superlattices
Nanostructured materials and nanostructures
Composites and nanocomposites
Functionally graded materials
Materials synthesis and processing
Electrical/optical/thermal properties 
Structural and mechanical characterisation 
Process modeling and simulation
New testing methods at nanoscale

FE-3 Progress in Devices and Applications

Device design, fabrication, integration, packaging , testing
Cost/performance and reliability issues
System simulation and demonstration
Intermediate power, micro-power and high-power applications
Novel and emerging approaches for thermal-to-electrical conversion systems
Commercialisation and market prospects

 

Invited Lectures

Harald BOTTNER, Fraunhofer Institut für Physikalische Messtechnik, Germany

Gang CHEN, MIT, USA
Lidong CHEN, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, CAS, China
Mikhail I. FEDOROV, Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, Russia
Jean-Pierre FLEURIAL, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
Ryoij FUNAHASHI, AIST, Japan
Franck GASCOIN, Université Montpellier II, France 
Emmanuel GUILMEAU, Laboratoire CRISMAT, France
Sylvie HEBERT, Laboratoire CRISMAT, France
Jiri HEJTMANEK, Institute of Physics of ASCR v.v.i., Czech Republic
David C. JOHNSON, University of Oregon, USA
Takenobu KAJIKAWA, Shonan Institute of Technology, Japan
Kunihito KOUMOTO, Nagoya University, Japan
Kazuhiko KUROKI, The University of Electro-Communications, Japan
Bertrand LENOIR and Christophe CANDOLFI, Ecole de Mines de Nancy, France
Heiner LINKE, Lund University, Sweden
Gerald D. MAHAN, Penn State University, USA
S.D. MAHANTI, Michigan State University, USA
Takao MORI, NIMS, Japan
Rajeev RAM, MIT, USA
Peter ROGL, University of Vienna, Austria
Ali SHAKOURI, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA
Jeffrey SNYDER, California Institute of Technology, USA
Ryosuke SUZUKI, Hokkaido University, Japan
Xinfeng TANG, Wuhan University of Technology, China
Ichiro TERASAKI, Waseda University, Japan
Rama VENKATASUBRAMANIAN, RTI International, USA
Jihui YANG, GM R&D Center, USA

The 8th European Conference on Thermoelectrics - ECT 2010