ECE Distinguished Speaker Series: Qiming Zhang, "Ferroelectrics and Solid-State Cooling?"
Title of talk: Ferroelectrics and Solid-State Cooling?
Ferroelectrics, with their intrinsically polar structures, provide a multifunctional platform that enables the efficient exchange and conversion of electrical energy and signals with other forms of energy and signals. Since 1950s, many ferroelectric effects have been successfully exploited and translated into commercial market. Electrocaloric cooling technology, based on the electric field induced temperature change in dielectrics, represents an environmental-benign cooling alternative which also has the promise of higher efficiency than the conventional vapor-compression based cooling. However, the misunderstanding of the electrocaloric effect in the ferroelectric community in the early stages of the ECE research significantly delayed/impeded the research and development efforts in this area. Even in 1963, a very small EC DT = 0.003 oC, was regarded as a milestone in the ECE research in ferroelectrics. This talk will briefly review the earlier works and present recent progress in electrocaloric cooling technologies and their potential applications, ranging from distributed and compact cooling/heating systems to thermal management for electronics.
Bio: Qiming Zhang is the Havey F. Brush Chair and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. He obtained Ph. D. at Penn State and afterwards spent a few years at Brookhaven National Laboratory, studying thin films. He joined the Penn State University as a faculty in 1991. His research covers electronic materials and devices, especially ferroelectric, dielectric, electroactive materials and devices. He was a founder of Novasentis, Inc., served as the Chairman of the Board and VP for Technology (2006-2012). He is a fellow of IEEE, APS, NAI, and AAAS, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has received several awards, including Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize and SPIE Smart Structures and Materials (SSM) Lifetime Achievement Award.
