| Abstract Scope |
Caloric cooling technologies have attracted much attention in recent years since they display extremely energy-efficient conversion processes at the materials level. Caloric cooling techniques are roughly divided into magnetocaloric cooling which has been around since the 80s, electrocaloric cooling harnessing ferroelectricity, and mechanocaloric cooling which includes elastocaloric cooling based on the superelasticity of martensitic shape memory alloys. The focus of our research has been on elastocaloric cooling, which compared to other caloric phenomena, distinguishes itself by exhibiting very large intrinsic adiabatic temperature change at the materials level. We are actively designing and incorporating new materials in order to enhance the performance of elastocaloric regenerators. I will also discuss the emerging trend in the development path of the caloric technologies in general. This work is carried out in collaboration with Het Mevada, Boyang Liu, and Yunho Hwang, and is supported by NSF ERC EARTH. |