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ITSnews is an aperiodic publication on thermoelectrics.
Lately more aperiodic than usual, if that's possible
News
The MRS is holding its annual election of MRS Board Members. I (Terry M. Tritt ) have been nominated by the internal nominating committee. If you are a MRS member you will receive instructions on voting for the Board members. Only MRS Members can vote. I would appreciate your vote. As many of you know I have worked hard at the inclusion of thermoelectrics within the MRS community and hope to see that expanded even more so.
Thank you
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission is preparing to set down a large, mobile laboratory — the rover Curiosity — using precision landing technology that makes many of Mars’ most intriguing regions viable destinations for the first time. During the 23 months after landing, Curiosity will analyze dozens of samples drilled from rocks or scooped from the ground as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover.
The rover’s electrical power will be supplied by a U.S. Department of Energy radioisotope thermoelectric power generatorCuriosity will carry the most advanced payload of scien- tific gear ever used on Mars’ surface, a payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers. Its assignment: Investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.
Look inside the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to watch the next Mars rover being built (http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl).
The rover’s electrical power will be supplied by a U.S. Department of Energy radioisotope thermoelectric power generator. The multi- mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator produces electricity from the heat of plutonium-238’s radioactive decay. This long-lived power supply gives the mission an operating lifespan on Mars’ surface of a full Mars year (687 Earth days) or more. At launch, the generator will provide about 110 watts of electrical power to operate the rover’s instruments, robotic arm, wheels, computers and radio. Warm fluids heated by the generator’s excess heat are plumbed throughout the rover to keep electronics and other systems at acceptable operating temperatures.
For more details, please refer to the MSL fact sheet attached.
SCIENCE OF ADVANCED MATERIALS
A Special Issue on
Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices
CALL FOR PAPERS
Growing public awareness in renewable energy sources and environmentally-friendly cooling and refrigeration triggered by the prospects of climate change, and eventual fossil fuel depletion has revived interest in thermoelectric materials and technology. In recent years, significant progress has been made on new synthetic and processing approaches to high performance materials, novel characterization methods, theoretical studies and innovative device-design and fabrication for improve and efficient solid state refrigeration and conversion of waste heat from power plants, automobiles and solar thermal energy into useable electrical energy. This special issue of Science of Advanced Materials (SAMs) is focused on recent advances in thermoelectric energy conversion and cooling including material discovery; thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of new materials; and device design, fabrication and testing.
Contributions as original research papers, communications, and comprehensive reviews to this special issue are invited in the following research topics:
- Synthetic strategies for new thermoelectric materials and compounds
- Processing of bulk and thin-film nanostructured materials
- High performance bulk nanostructured thermoelectric materials
- Superlattice and nanostructured materials
- Theoretical studies of transport properties
- Thermal and electrical property measurements and novel measurement techniques
- Mechanical properties of thermoelectric materials
- Emerging technologies for thermoelectric energy conversion
- Thermoelectric device design, fabrication and performance testing
- Heat transfer in nanostructured materials
- Novel heat sink design for thermoelectric devices
- New thermal management techniques in a thermoelectric device
- New materials and bonding techniques for thermoelectric device fabrication
- Novel applications of thermoelectric generators
- Applications and new directions in thermoelectric energy conversion
- Thermoelectric materials and devices for solar energy harvesting
GUEST EDITORS
This special issue will be edited by the following Guest Editors:
Prof. Pierre Ferdinand Poudeu (GUEST Editor)
Advanced Materials Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of New Orleans, USA
Email: ppoudeup@uno.edu
Dr. James Salvador (GUEST Co-Editor)
Chemical Sciences and Materials Systems Laboratory, General Motors R&D Center, USA
Subject: Materials discovery - New thermoelectric materials
Email: james.salvador@gm.com
Prof. Kevin Stokes (GUEST Co-Editor)
Advanced Materials Research Institute and Department of Physics, University of New Orleans, USA
Subject: Materials property measurement and new measurement techniques
Email: klstokes@uno.edu
Prof. Jeff Sakamoto (GUEST Co-Editor)
Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University, USA
Subject: Thermoelectric device design, fabrication and testing
Email: jsakamot@msu.edu
MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Manuscripts must be prepared according to the Journal’s guidelines, available at http://www.aspbs.com/sam. Submit your cover letter and manuscript in MS Word or PDF format directly to the Guest Editor or one to the Guest Co-Editors assigned to the subject related to the manuscript topic.
All submissions to this special issue will be subjected to a strict peer review process to ensure that only high quality articles are published. Please indicate in your cover letter that the submitted paper has not been published previously and is not currently submitted for review to any other journal and will not be submitted elsewhere before a final decision is made by this journal.
Please notify the Guest Editors well in advance for your kind intension for submitting a research paper.
KEY DATES:
Manuscript due: December 15, 2010
Author’s notification: January 15, 2011
Publication date: March-April, 2011
The International Thermoelectric Society is pleased to announce that
registration is now open for the 30th International Conference on
Thermoelectrics (ICT 2011). Please visit the conference website
http://ict2011.its.org to process your registration and secure your
accommodations
The ITS website now has a link to other thermoelectric Societies around the world:
http://www.its.org/te_societies
If your own Society is not listed here, consider creating an account, logging in and creating your own entry:
login --> Create Content --> Create ZTlink --> Select 'TE Societies' from drop-down category list.
Contact the ITS webmaster if you need to edit an existing entry: http://www.its.org/contact
New & Updated Conferences
Journal of Materials Research (JMR)
CALL FOR PAPERS —JMR Focus Issue
Advances in Thermoelectric Materials
Journal of Materials Research announces a special focus issue on thermoelectric materials for August 2011, featuring advances in fundamental materials design and resulting thermoelectric properties. This focus issue will include several invited overview papers, invited feature papers, and original contributions. Papers are solicited in various relevant areas.
Submission Deadline—December 15, 2010
Focus Issue Guest Editors:
Terry M. Tritt, Clemson University
Harald Böttner, Fraunhofer Institut für Physikalische Messtechnik IPM
MRS Symposium I: Nanoscale Heat Transfer―Thermoelectrics, Thermophotovoltaics, and Emerging Thermal Devices
Novel materials and nanostructures such as multilayered systems, nanowires, and nanoparticles are of great interest for applications in thermoelectrics, magneto-electronics, and in the emerging research field of spin-caloritronics. Their fascinating properties are strongly influenced by nanoscale confinement, such as the reduction of heat conductivity and energy filtering of charge carriers. This symposium will focus on hybrid materials and nanostructures for applications of thermal-gradient-based transport, e.g., thermoelectric generators and coolers, and integrated nanoelectronic and nanosensor devices. Currently, nanopatterning is considered to be a promising strategy in the development of thermoelectric materials with high efficiency (ZT). A large variety of thermoelectric materials have been developed in the last five years with a focus on high-temperature applications and high efficiency.
Furthermore, heat management and detection on a submicrometer scale is an important subject for future nano/microelectronic circuits. For example, in magneto-electronic devices, the local heat evolution during current-induced domain wall motion is a limiting factor for the development of race-track memories. This symposium will highlight the latest developments on magneto-thermoelectric transport phenomena and thermophotovoltaic devices. As thermoelectricity is a multidisciplinary field of research, the symposium will ensure that all of the key areas, namely physics, chemistry and engineering, are well represented.
Session topics will include (but will not be limited to):
- Nanostructured materials with thermoelectric, spin-caloritronic, and thermophotovoltaic properties
- High-temperature thermoelectric nanomaterials
- Integrated nanowires or nanopatterned thin-film sensors under thermal gradients
- Autonomous nano- and microsensors
- Thermoelectric, magneto-thermoelectric and thermophotovoltaic nano- or microdevices
- High-density and local-cooling microdevices
- Heat evolution, transfer, and management in nanoelectronics
- Heat formation and material reliability in nanoscale electronic devices
- Novel characterization techniques of thermal-gradient-related properties in nanostructures
- Theory and simulation of thermal-gradient-based transport in nano- and microstructures
Invited speakers include:
Jean-Philippe Ansermet (EPFL, Switzerland), Gerrit Bauer (Technische Univ. Delft, Netherlands), Harald Böttner (Fraunhofer Inst. of Physical Measurement Techniques, Freiburg, Germany), Hartmut Buhmann (Univ. Würzburg, Germany), Claudia Felser (Univ. of Mainz, Germany), Tero T. Heikkilä (Helsinki Univ. of Technolgy, Finland), Joseph P. Heremans (Ohio State Univ.), David C. Johnson (Oregon State Univ.), Mercouri G. Kanatzidis (Northwestern Univ.), Heiner Linke (Univ. of Lund, Sweden), Ingmar Meijer (IBM Reserach - Zurich, Switzerland), Yung Woo Park (Seoul National Univ., Korea), Eiji Saitoh (Tohoku Univ., Japan), Ali Shakouri (Univ. of Californa, Santa Cruz), Jairo Sinova (Texas A&M Univ.), Jeff Snyder (California Inst. of Technology), and Yaroslav Tserkovnyak (Univ. of California, Los Angeles).
Symposium Organizers
Kornelius Nielsch
University of Hamburg, Institute of Applied Physics,
Jungiusstr. 11, 20355 Hamburg, Germany
Tel 49-40-42838-6521, Fax 49-40-42383-3589
nielsch@physik.uni-hamburg.de
Saskia F. Fischer
Ruhr-Univ. of Bochum, Nanoelectronic and Electronic Materials,
Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, IC2/33,
D-44789 Bochum, Germany
Tel 49-234-32-25760, Fax 49-234-32-14166
saskia.fischer@rub.de
Bethanie J. H. Stadler
University of Minnesota, Dept. of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, 200 Union St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Tel 612-626-1628, Fax 612-625-4583, stadler@ece.umn.edu
Ted Kamins
Stanford University, Dept. of Electrical Engineering,
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel 650-723-7537, Fax 650-723-4659, ted_kamins@ieee.org
MRS Symposium E: Energy Harvesting─From Fundamentals to Devices
Energy harvesting refers to the set of processes by which useful energy is captured from waste, environmental, or mechanical sources and is converted to a usable form and stored. Energy harvesting is a broad topic that includes established methods and materials such as thermoelectrics, as well as more recent energy-harvesting technologies that convert mechanical energy, magnetic energy, and waste heat to electricity. This symposium will explore various state-of-the-art materials and devices for direct energy conversion, from thermal-to-electric to multistep energy-conversion technologies, including thermionics, thermoacoustics, and compound thermoelectrics. The symposium will highlight both the fundamental materials science underlying energy-harvesting principles and devices, as well as emphasize device-design innovations that lead to higher efficiency energy harvesting or conversion technologies. In addition, potential applications for these technologies will be discussed with the intention on linking specific material properties, issues, and needs to desired applications ranging from the cm/mm scale-down to MEMS/NEMS (micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems) devices.
The symposium will also highlight the multidisciplinary nature of the research (materials science, physics, chemistry, and applied engineering) necessary to advance the field. Theoretical studies will be presented to address transport properties, crystal chemistry, thermodynamic analysis, energy transfer, system efficiency, and device operation. New developments in experimental methods, device design and fabrication, nanostructured materials fabrication, materials properties, and device-performance measurement techniques will be emphasized.
Session topics will include:
- Modeling the efficiency of energy-harvesting devices
- Energy harvesting for wireless sensors
- Innovative devices for harvesting mechanical, magnetic, and low-quality waste heat
- Computational design of new materials for thermoelectric and mechanical/magnetic devices
- Application of multiferroic materials to energy harvesting
- Compound thermoelectric, thermionic, and thermoacoustic materials
- Nanostructured materials for energy-harvesting applications
- Advanced concepts in thermoelectric materials
Invited speakers include:
David Andrews (Univ. of East Anglia, United Kingdom), Lon Bell (BSST), Greg Carman (Univ. of California, Los Angeles), Gang Chen (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology), Ryoji Funahashi (AIST: National Inst. of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan), Viktoria Greanya (DARPA), Mercouri Kanatzidis (Northwestern Univ.), Carl Koch (North Carolina State Univ.), Laura H. Lewis (Northeastern Univ.), Joe Poon (Univ. of Virginia), Ramesh Ramamoorthy (Univ. of California, Berkeley, LBNL), and Eric Yeatman (Imperial College London, United Kingdom). Additional invited speakers will be selected from the contributed abstracts.
Symposium Organizers
Harry Radousky
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/Univ. of California-Davis,
Dept. of Physics, Livermore, CA 94551
Tel 925-422-4478, radousky1@llnl.gov
Rama Venkatasubramanian
RTI International, Center for Solid State Energetics,
3040 Cornwallis Rd., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Tel 919-541-6889, Fax 919-541-6515, rama@rti.org
Hong Liang
Texas A&M University, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,
College Station, TX 77843-3123
Tel 979-862-2623, Fax 979-845-3081, hliang@tamu.edu
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Spring 11 ZZ: Advances in thermoelectric materials & devices for energy applications
Scope: Recently, there have been significant advances in direct thermal-to-electrical energy conversion materials and this has generated increased interest in the field. This symposium will highlight a combination of new theoretical ideas, new materials and new device concepts in Europe, the US, and Asia. A spectrum of plenary, invited and contributed presentations will provide an overview of the status of research and development in thermoelectric materials, devices and applications. This symposium will focus on novel materials, various methods of materials processing and synthesis along with technologies and applications related to direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion, specifically: thermoelectrics (TE), thermionics and thermophotovoltaics. Processing plays a central role in the performance of many materials. The role of ball millling powder fabrication and/or rapid solidification such as melt spinning precursor materials followed by short term (i.e. spark plasma sintering (SPS)) processing has had an ever-increasing role in the development of thermoelectric materials processing methods. Other novel processing techniques will also be highlighted including the growth of TE nanomaterials and in-situ formation of novel microstructures. Thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of new materials and the processing of those materials into device structures will be emphasized. The symposium also intends to feature material & device-design innovations that can lead to higher efficiency thermal-to-electric energy conversion technologies. The development of high performance TE materials requires a multi-disciplinary approach (materials science, physics, chemistry and engineering) of the research needed to advance the state of the art technology. Theoretical studies of transport properties, band structure and crystal chemistry of materials, thermodynamic analysis and energy transfer in ballistic processes will also be included. Experimental efforts will include new capabilities in solid-state synthesis, new bulk materials, thin films, superlattices and nanostructured materials. New developments in material property measurements and device performance and characterization techniques will also be highlighted in this symposium. Hot topics to be covered by the symposium:
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Organizing Committee of XIV International Forum on Thermoelectricity informs you that a regular XIV International Forum on Thermoelectricity will be held from May 17-20, 2011 in Moscow, Russia. Information on the Forum will be posted on site of Institute of Thermoelectricity (http://forum.inst.cv.ua).
L. Anatychuk,
Chairman of the Organizing Committee,
President of the International Thermoelectric Academy
Jobs
A fully funded PhD studentship available at University of East Anglia supported by EPSRC industry CASE scheme. Details see the link:http://ueasciweb.uea.ac.uk/Resproject/show.aspx?ID=123
Upcoming Conferences
That's all for today. Let me know if I forgot anything!
