This $234,696 National Science Foundation Project Grant, funded through the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), will support research into cross-plane heat conduction in two-dimensional materials under large compressive strain. Over a two-year period from June 2022 to May 2025, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno will conduct experimental and computational studies of heat transfer across layers in three material systems - pristine MoS2, twisted MoS2, and graphite - under high...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award to Auburn University for $269,528 will investigate how the twist angle affects the thermal conductance of 2D material homo- and heterojunctions. The goal is to provide the first experimental data on this phenomenon, which has only been explored through modeling and theoretical analysis. The project will use new Raman techniques to measure temperature differences and heat flux across these junctions,...
This $562,789 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to Arizona State University aims to deepen the understanding of deformation mechanisms in axially bi-continuous graphene-nickel composites. The project will leverage new laser-based material processing and microdevice-based characterization methods to investigate the strengthening mechanisms of these graphene-metal composites, which can potentially lead to the development of...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award, totaling $560,000, will support research at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) to develop new methods for investigating nanoscale thermal transport phenomena. The research will combine ultrafast optical measurement techniques with nanoscale spatial resolution to probe energy carriers, such as electrons and phonons, in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium regimes. The goal is to...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $359,971 project grant to the University of Oklahoma to research methods for enhancing heat transfer across the interface between diamond substrates and gallium nitride (GaN) electronic devices. The project, funded under NSF's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), aims to explore how evanescent electric fields can be leveraged to improve acoustic phonon transmission and thermal conductance at these critical interfaces. This work seeks to enable more...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports Purdue University's research to advance the fundamental understanding of four-phonon and exciton-phonon interactions and their impact on thermal transport and energy dissipation in emerging layered electronic and optoelectronic materials. The $293,927 award runs from September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026. The research aims to address key knowledge gaps around how highly nonlinear...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award of $375,000 will fund research to develop a fundamental understanding of the multi-functional response of a new class of engineered materials: three-dimensional woven architected nano-composites. The research will focus on fabricating, modeling, and experimentally characterizing these highly deformable materials that can provide electrical responses based on the amount of deformation, enabling their...
This Project Grant award, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), supports a collaborative research project between Duke University and ETH Zürich to explore the thermal implications of scaling and structure of metal contacts to two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials. The $400,000 award, effective September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2027, aims to: 1) develop an apparatus for nanoscale thermal mapping of 2D contact structures; 2)...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) has awarded a $159,986 Project Grant to Wichita State University to study a novel class of thermal diodes based on capillary filling and emptying in heterogeneous nanostructures. The primary objectives are to examine the hypothesis that controlling capillary-driven thermal transport can enable highly efficient (rectification ratio >100) nanoscale thermal diodes for advanced thermal management, energy harvesting, and...
This Project Grant award, granted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084), provides $550,000 in funding to Carnegie Mellon University for the development of high-performance, nanostructured thermal pads to enhance heat dissipation in electronics. The key products or services to be delivered under this award include scalable and cost-effective manufacturing strategies to mass produce the nanostructured thermal pads,...