Lattice thermal transport: barriers and channels, challenges and insights by Lucas Lindsay

Abstract: The management of heat and the understanding of heat transfer are ubiquitous challenges in numerous sciences and technologies, from models of Earth’s thermal history to managing local hot spots in microelectronics. Computational materials physics is now playing an increasingly important role in developing fundamental insights into the lattice thermal conductivity of solids, a fundamentally important parameter that determines the utility of a material for energy-related applications including thermoelectricity, nuclear power generation, heat dissipation and manipulation, and thermal analogs to electronic components (e.g., thermal diodes and switches).

Here I will discuss a powerful, predictive method for modeling heat transfer: first principles Peierls-Boltzmann transport.  Discussion will include application of this method to examine lattice dynamics and transport in a variety of systems, interaction with experimental research and current challenges faced by this method.  In particular I will present recent work related to BAs (x-ray measurements, high conductivity), CuCl (neutron measurements, low conductivity), nanoscale transport and other newly developed insights.

L.L. acknowledges support from the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.

Biosketch: Dr. Lucas Lindsay received a BS degree in physics from the College of Charleston in 2004. He did his PhD work on theoretical thermal transport in carbon nanotubes and graphene at Boston College with Prof. David Broido.  He received his PhD in 2010.  Following this he taught physics for two years at Christopher Newport University and spent three years as a National Research Council Fellow with Dr. Thomas Reinecke at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.  He is now a research scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  His primary research focus area is first principles vibrational properties and lattice thermal transport in bulk and nanoscale systems.

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Mar 09, 2018
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Location:
37-124 Engineering IV
420 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles CA