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Computational Modeling of Nanostructured Materials for Improved Thermal Management

Update time:Mar 25, 2014
Presented by Dr. Ming Hu, RWTH Aachen University

Time: 09:30 a.m., March 26, 2014   

Location: E321, Measurement Buliding, SINANO   

Abstract:   

Rapid progress in synthesis and processing of nanomaterials has created a pressing demand for greater scientific understanding of thermal transport at the nanoscale. Employing the related interweaving surface/interface and confinement phenomena, two key research paradigms of importance to energy conversion and transport will be discussed. On the one hand, owing to miniaturization and nanostructuring, heat conduction can be significantly hindered in a controlled manner so that materials with very low thermal conductivity can be nanofabricated, which can be beneficial for energy conversion applications, e.g. in high efficiency thermoelectrics. On the other hand, interfacial thermal transport can be improved by phonon manipulation such that low interfacial thermal resistance can be realized in electronics to enhance heat dissipation in thermal management. This presentation will focus on interfacial heat transfer in electronics (thermal management). In particular, I will take GaN/SiC interface as an example to describe methods to reduce interfacial thermal resistance by interface nanoengineering and by taking advantage of nanoconfinement effect. Our results show that for thermal management of GaN-based electronics the overall thermal transport is dominated by the interfacial thermal resistance. By nanoengineering the interface, the interfacial thermal resistance can be significantly reduced. These results exemplify opportunities and challenges of nanoengineering in nanoscale thermal transport and provide a new perspective to innovative thermal management.  

Biography:   

Ming Hu received the B.S. degree in mechanics from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2001 and the Ph.D. degree in solid mechanics from Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2006. After several years of research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, he joined RWTH Aachen University in Germany as a junior professor in February 2013. His current research interests include nanoscale thermal transport in novel energy conversion, interfacial heat transfer for advanced thermal management, non-Fourier heat conduction, and thermodynamics of nanomaterials for energy nanotechnology. Dr. Glebov has started his industrial career at Bell Laboratories in NJ and moved to Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. He worked for over a decade in various engineering and management positions with key optoelectronics manufacturers such as Finisar, Fujitsu, and Lucent Technologies. In 2008, Dr. Glebov was appointed CEO of OptiGrate Corp and moved to Orlando, Fl to lead the company to a greater success.
 

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