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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Heat is a form of energy of which we still have relatively poor control: overheating during operation is a serious issue for electronic devices, and in any energy conversion process a large amount of thermal energy is wasted in the environment. Better control of thermal energy, starting from the microscopic scale, would allow us to target efficiently major technological issues, such as heat management in information and communication technology and in photovoltaics, as well as thermoelectric energy harvesting. The optimization of materials, devices and processes with respect to heat management stems from a better understanding of phonon transport at the molecular and nanoscale. In this talk I will illustrate cases in which predictive molecular simulations shed light on thermal energy transport in nanostructured materials and in molecular systems, thus suggesting viable optimization pathways for thermoelectric material and devices. Finally I will address the case of energy relaxation in molecular liquids, and discuss how heat dissipation entangles to molecular energy relaxation in pump-probe experiments.
Host: Christoph Junghans