Event
MSE Seminar: Dr. Oded Rabin, UMD
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
3:30 p.m.
Room 2108 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
Sherri Tatum
301-405-5240
statum12@umd.edu
Transverse Thermoelectrics - a tool for terrestrial and extra-terrestrial thermal management
Abstract: Thermoelectric phenomena result from the coupling between heat and electrical transport in materials. Conventional thermoelectric devices assume the temperature gradient is parallel to the electric potential gradient (i.e. the E-field direction). However, this is not a required condition. Transverse thermoelectric phenomena emerge when temperature and electric potential gradients are orthogonal to each other. Transverse effects can be harnessed to sense heat flux and recover waste heat in challenging environments, and thus have relevance to many engineering challenges in energy production, electronics packaging, and space exploration. Utilizing the Transverse Seebeck Effect (TSE), we have designed, built, and tested heat flux sensing devices tailored for moderate- and high-temperature applications. We introduce new testing protocols that provide reliable values for the responsivity of the sensors (i.e. calibration curves) at elevated temperatures. By leveraging materials selection and the simplicity inherent to TSE-based devices, these sensors have the potential to operate at temperatures exceeding 1000⁰C and fill a technical void that is currently present in thermal systems metrology. The seminar will end with a discussion on how the current limitations of natural materials exhibiting the TSE may be overcome through the design of artificial composite materials for higher performance devices.
Bio: Oded Rabin is an associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UMD with a joint appointment in IREAP and an adjunct appointment in Aerospace Engineering. He obtained a B.A. in Chemistry from the Technion, an M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Weizmann Inst. of Science, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from MIT. He completed postdoctoral research in Mass. General Hospital and UC Berkeley before joining UMD. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the US-Germany Fulbright Scholar Award from the U.S. Department of State. His research interests include nanoscience, plasmonics, and thermoelectrics.
