Ohio State receives $6.25 million to lead spin and thermal effects research

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Roberto Myers
Roberto Myers
The Ohio State University has been awarded a five-year $6.25 million grant through the Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary Research Initiative (MURI) Program to explore materials with spin mediated thermal properties. Funded through the Army Research Office, the initiative aims to develop new materials with extraordinary thermal properties based on an effect—known as spin—that converts heat into a quantum mechanical phenomenon.

Led by Roberto Myers, professor of materials science and engineering, electrical and computer engineering and physics, the research could potentially lead to new materials and devices for thermal management and waste heat recovery. Since most energy is lost to heat, even small improvements in managing thermal energy would offer a dramatic increase in energy efficiency.

“This is the first large research initiative in spin and thermal effects in the United States,” Myers said. “The grant sends the message that the federal government realizes the importance of exploring materials science of new spin-based thermal effects where heat can push magnetic moments through material, and contrarily, waves of magnetic moments in materials can transport heat.”

Myers leads the interdisciplinary, inter-university team, which includes Ohio State’s Joseph Heremans, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology; David Cahill of University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, David Awschalom from the University of Chicago, Li Shi from the University of Texas at Austin, and Yaroslav Tserkovnyak from the University of California, Los Angeles.

These experts have extensive knowledge and experience from the world of thermoelectrics and thermal transport in solids, as well as from the fields of magnetism and spin-transport to identify structure properties and relationships for materials exhibiting spin-mediated thermal properties.

The MURI program supports basic research by teams of investigators that intersect several traditional science and engineering disciplines in order to accelerate research progress.  

 

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