Symposium EN10-Thermoelectric Materials, Devices and Applications

The symposium will broadly cover thermoelectric materials, device, and applications. It is set up to invite active scientists world-wide to join together for addressing the currently hot topics in the field of thermoelectrics. As a resurgent active area in materials science, thermoelectric research has attracted much attention, and quite a few great advancements have been made in recent years. There are, however, still many scientific issues yet to be resolved, which requires interdisciplinary collaboration for new breakthroughs. Of special importance are the fundamentals, including electrical and thermal transport in complex compounds and composite materials, sophisticated physical measurements and in-depth characterization of those properties. Symposium contributions should address basic science issues, or explore new phenomena (for example: spin-Seebeck effect), or address obstacles confronting the development of practical applications from emerging materials. Discussion of synthesis, growth mechanisms, and fabrication routes; methods to improve properties important for applications; and discussions that advance understanding of fundamental material science issues should also be welcomed.

Topics will include:

Synthesis and processing of nanostructure, including (a) solutions to problems for fabricating practical thermoelectric modules; (b) basic requirements for modules made from emerging materials
Phonon and electron transport properties: (a) intrinsic behavior within grains, crystals, and oriented films; (b) anisotropy; (c) electron correlation; (d) interface properties
Novel aspects of thermoelectric transport; Spin-Seebeck effect, photo-thermal effects, and topological insulators
Other thermoelectric properties important for applications
Novel synthesis routes, atomic layer control, self-assembly, Thermodynamics, kinetics, and growth mechanisms
Thermoelectric oxides, sulfides, organics, amorphous, other unconventional materials
Se-, Te-, Si-based compounds, skutterudies, clatherates, half-heuster
Bulk non-equilibrium synthesis (e.g. melt-spin, ball milling): processing and applications
Waste-heat recovery, energy harvesting, refrigeration, and other applications

Invited Speakers:

Gang Chen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Ling Chen (Beijing Normal University, China)
Ryoji Funahashi (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan)
Franck Gascoin (CRISMAT Laboratory, France)
Yaniv Gelbstein (Ben-Gurion University, Israel)
Yuri Grin (Max Planck Institute, Germany)
Jiaqing He (South University of Science Technology of China, China)
Susan M. Kauzlarich (University of California, Davis, USA)
Jingfeng Li (Tsinghua University, China)
Takao Mori (National Institute for Materials Science, Japan)
Zhifeng Ren (University of Houston, USA)
James R. Salvador (General Motors, USA)
Ctirad Uher (University of Michigan, USA)
Anke Weidenkaff (Fraunhofer IWKS and TU Darmstadt)
Jihui Yang (University of Washington, USA)
Alexandra Zevalkink (Michigan State University, USA)
Wenqing Zhang (Shanghai University, China)