| Scope |
This symposium will provide an interdisciplinary forum for researchers from academia, national laboratories, and industry to present and discuss recent advances in materials design, processing, characterization, and device integration for energy conversion and energy harvesting technologies.
The symposium will focus on alloys, compounds, and related material systems for thermoelectric and solar cell applications, spanning fundamental science to device-relevant considerations. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
1. Materials Synthesis and Fabrication
Novel synthesis routes for thermoelectric and photovoltaic materials
Crystal growth, thin films, nanostructures, and bulk processing
Scalable, cost-effective, and industry-relevant manufacturing approaches
Additive manufacturing and advanced processing strategies
2. Transport Properties and Structure-Property Relationships
Electrical, thermal, optical, and coupled transport phenomena
Carrier, phonon, and photon transport across multiple length scales
Correlations between defects, microstructure, dimensionality, and transport behavior
Strategies to decouple transport properties for enhanced device performance
3. Phase Stability, Defect Chemistry, and Transformations
Phase stability under thermal, electrical, mechanical, and environmental stresses
Defect formation, diffusion, and evolution during operation
Phase transitions and their impact on functional performance and reliability
Long-term durability and degradation mechanisms
4. Advanced and Operando Characterization
State-of-the-art structural, chemical, and spectroscopic techniques
In-situ and operando characterization under realistic working conditions
Multimodal and correlative characterization approaches
Data-driven characterization and integration with modeling
5. Modeling, Theory, and Data-Driven Approaches
First-principles calculations, mesoscale modeling, and multiscale simulations
Machine learning and materials informatics for materials discovery and optimization
Predictive models linking composition, structure, and performance
6. Materials Systems of Interest
Established thermoelectric and photovoltaic materials, including skutterudites, half-Heusler alloys, superlattices, CdTe, CIS, CIGS, and CZTS
Emerging and unconventional materials for next-generation energy conversion
Environmentally benign, earth-abundant, and sustainable material systems
Hybrid, low-dimensional, and composite materials
7. Device Integration and Applications
Module design, interfaces, and contact engineering
Performance evaluation at the device and system levels
Applications in waste-heat recovery, cooling, power generation, and solar energy harvesting |