About this Abstract | 
  
   
    | Meeting | 
    2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
       | 
  
   
    | Symposium 
       | 
    Innovations in Energy Materials: Unveiling Future Possibilities of Computational Modelling and Atomically Controlled Experiments
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    | Presentation Title | 
    Local Thermal Conductivity Imaging and Modelling to Guide Microstructure Engineering in Energy Materials  | 
  
   
    | Author(s) | 
    Eleonora  Isotta, Christina  Scheu, G. Jeffrey  Snyder, Oluwaseyi  Balogun | 
  
   
    | On-Site Speaker (Planned) | 
    Eleonora  Isotta | 
  
   
    | Abstract Scope | 
    
Engineering microstructural defects offers superior control over transport properties, critically affecting the performance of energy materials. Despite the relevance, we lack a clear understanding of how individual microstructures modulate microscale transport owing to the scarcity of local investigations. 
In this work, we illustrate recent efforts in developing structure-property relations for individual microstructural defects based on microscale thermal conductivity imaging.  Experimental observations in thermoelectric SnTe and photovoltaic silicon reveal a thermal conductivity suppression in the vicinity of grain boundaries, localized within a few microns. Furthermore, not all boundaries behave the same: misorientation angle, lattice symmetry, interface roughness and morphology are found to strongly correlate with the effective thermal boundary resistance. Finally, semi-empirical models of the thermal conductivity profile around a boundary are developed, based on mean free path suppression functions. 
This advancement can improve understanding of carrier-defect interactions, enabling the rational engineering of microstructures for superior performance in energy and electronics. | 
  
   
    | Proceedings Inclusion? | 
    Planned:  | 
  
 
    | Keywords | 
    Characterization, Energy Conversion and Storage, Thin Films and Interfaces |