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December 6 Seminar Features Li Shi

11/30/2011

Li Shi

Tuesday, December 6, 2011
4:00 – 5:00 pm
1504 GG Brown

The seminar for Tuesday, December 6, features Li Shi. Shi is a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.E. degree in Thermal Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing in 1991, M.S. degree from Arizona State University in 1997, and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley in 2001. Dr. Shi was a Research Staff Member at IBM Research Division from 2001 to 2002 before he joined the Texas faculty. He received the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2003, the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2004, the ASME Transaction Journal of Heat Transfer Outstanding Reviewer Award in 2005, and the Myron L. Begeman Fellowship in Engineering at UT Austin since 2007. He will discuss “Thermal Transport and Thermoelectric Conversion in Nanostructured and Complex Materials.”

Abstract: This seminar will review several intriguing quantum and classical size effects on thermal and thermoelectric properties of nanostructured and complex materials. Attentions are focused on the Casimir limit of lattice thermal conductivity of nanowires, the interplay between phonon-interface scattering and crystal complexity in III-V and silicide nanostructures, size-dependent thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes and graphene, the effects of interface interaction on phonon transport in and across nanotubes and graphene, and local temperatures of different phonon populations in electrically biased carbon electronic devices. A current effort of developing bulk silicide thermoelectric waste heat recovery devices will be briefly introduced as an example of the engineering relevance of these fundamental studies in thermal physics.

For more information on future department seminars, visit the ME Seminar Series page.