CEM Faculty Jos Heremans Featured in Nature ‘News and Views’ Article: “Thermoelectricity: The ugly duckling”

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With tin sometimes described as one of the base (think homeliest) metals, perhaps it should come as no surprise that it, like the misidentified cygnet in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Ugly Duckling, may actually be inherently beautiful — at least in the eyes of those who appreciate the potential of thermoelectricity.

To draw the analogy, Professor Joseph Heremans, borrowed the title “Thermoelectricity: The ugly duckling” for an article that he authored and which appears in the April 17, 2014 print edition (Volume 508) of the journal Nature. The article, which can be found on pages 327-328 in the News and Views section of the journal, details why there’s beauty (or higher than imagined thermoelectric efficiency) in the single crystals of tin selenide. The article also serves as context for a research paper authored by a group Northwestern University researchers whom belong to the same Energy Frontier Research Center as Professor Heremans and his research team. 

According to Heremans, the study led by Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis at Northwestern University, his graduate student Li-Dong Zhao and colleagues further underscores the fact that progress in the thermal sciences relative to thermoelectric power applications has been unrelenting and discoveries about thermal conductivity often quite surprising.

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Recent CEM results published in Nature Nanotechnology – Could diamonds be a computer’s best friend?

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Recent CEM results published in Nature Nanotechnology

Could diamonds be a computer’s best friend?

March 24, 2014

For the first time, CEM researchers have demonstrated that information can flow through a diamond wire. In the experiment, electrons did not flow through diamond as they do in traditional electronics; rather, they stayed in place and passed along a magnetic effect called “spin” to each other down the wire—like a row of sports spectators doing “the wave.

Spin could one day be used to transmit data in computer circuits—and this new experiment, done at The Ohio State University, revealed that diamond transmits spin better than most metals in which researchers have previously observed the effect.

Further information on this research can be found in this article and in the publication.

CEM Assoc. Director Jessica Winter Named One of “20 People to Know in Technology”

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This year Columbus Business First has named the CEM Associate Director, Prof. Jessica Winter from the OSU departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, as one of the 20 People to Know in Technology in the region! Please join us in congratulating Prof. Winter in this achievement. You can read more about this distinction and see her interview here.

Do you have an idea for an outreach program? Funding is available from ICAM

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ICAM announces the availability of $20,000 for SEE (Science, Engagement, and Education) Outreach Grants

ICAM is looking for SEE projects that will increase the greater public’s understanding of emergent phenomenon and the origins of complex behavior; and encourage science engagement between the research community (especially graduate students) and schools, museums, and the public at large.

$20,000 of funding will be split between 2 or 3 SEE grants.

CEM co-sponsors OSU’s ICAM membership, so CEM participants are eligible to apply.

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2014 Seed Grant Program RFP Now Available

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CEM is pleased to announce the 2014 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program Request for Proposals is now available.  This internal seed grant program is open to The Ohio State University materials community and offers two Funding Tiers to cover the breadth of materials research at OSU.

click here for the 2014 RFP with full details and instructions

The two Funding Tiers of the 2014 OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program are:

  1. Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants, which provide funds up to $60,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI and one Co-PI, and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities.
  2. Exploratory Materials Research Grants, which provide funds up to $40,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI, and may have Co-PIs and/or unfunded collaborators, with the goal of enabling nascent and innovative materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding. 

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