Extreme Strain Engineering to Control Photon, Electron, Phonon and Polariton Transport in Materials for Energy Applications

I will discuss the opportunities and applications enabled by strain-induced deformations in semiconductor and polymer materials. One such application is persistent electric energy generation in flexoelectric devices that can be achieved by harnessing absorption and radiative heat emission in narrow-gap semiconductors with inversion symmetry broken by inhomogeneous strain [1]. Another is static and dynamic control of directional surface plasmon polariton modes propagation in Weyl semimetals or semiconductors under strain [2,3]. I will outline strategies to engineer and characterize the effects of the externally-induced or in-situ strain on the material structure, polarization, and energy transport properties. Finally, I will discuss the opportunities for solid-state cooling and heating applications based on elastocaloric and twistocaloric effects in strain-activated polymer fibers engineered to achieve temperature control, energy storage, and thermal conductivity modulation.<br/><br/>This research has been supported in part by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory under award No.ACC-777 (for the flexoelectric energy harvesting), the Army Research Office under award No. W911NF-19-1-0279 (for the near-field radiative energy transfer), the DOE-BES program under award No. DE-FG02-02ER45977 (for the strain-controlled thermal conductivity) and the MIT-SUSTech Program (for the elastocaloric effects).<br/><br/>[1] B. Lorenzi, Y. Tsurimaki, A. Kobayashi, M. Takashiri, and S. V. Boriskina, "Self-powered broadband photo-detection and persistent energy generation with junction-free strained Bi2Te3 thin films," Opt. Express 28(19), 27644–27656 (2020).<br/>[2] S. Pajovic, Y. Tsurimaki, X. Qian, and S. V. Boriskina, "Radiative heat and momentum transfer from materials with broken symmetries," Opt. Mater. Express 11(9), 3125–3131 (2021).<br/>[3] S.V. Boriskina, M. Blevins, S. Pajovic, There and Back Again: the nonreciprocal adventures of light, Opt. Photon. News, Sept. 2022.