Brigita Rozic1,Dejvid Cresnar1,Matic Morgan1,Bostjan Zalar1,Samo Kralj2,Zdravko Kutnjak1,Gregor Skacej3
Jozef Stefan Institute1,FNM, University of Maribor2,FMF, University of Ljubljana3
Brigita Rozic1,Dejvid Cresnar1,Matic Morgan1,Bostjan Zalar1,Samo Kralj2,Zdravko Kutnjak1,Gregor Skacej3
Jozef Stefan Institute1,FNM, University of Maribor2,FMF, University of Ljubljana3
With increased environmental awareness, the search for an environmentally friendlier heat- management device has been the topic of many scientific studies. Materials with large caloric effects, such as the electrocaloric (EC) and elastocaloric (eC) effects, have the promise of realizing new solid-state refrigeration techniques. A review of recent direct measurements of the large EC effect in liquid crystals (LCs) and large eC effect in liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) [1, 2] will be given in this contribution, including the application aspect. In particular, in smectic LCs and mixtures of LCs with functionalized nanoparticles, the EC effect exceeds 8 K and the eC in main-chain (MC) LCEs exceeds 2K with the eC responsivity about three orders of magnitude larger than the average eC responsivity found in the best shape memory alloys. However, both soft materials can play a significant role as active cooling elements and parts of thermal diodes or regeneration material in developing new cooling devices. [1] D. Črešnar et al, J. Phys. Energy 5: 045004, 2023. [2] A. Rešetič et al, Nat Comm 7: 13140, 2016.