Abstract:

It is not easy to define what energy is and even though we know how to transform and use it for our benefit. We use it to run our cars or our industry and to keep cold our homes during the hottest months of the year.

The fact that our societies are more and more energy demanding is in clear conflict with a finite world with finite resources, so we need solutions for the mismatch between supply and demand, and these solutions are found at different levels, from in situ energy supply technologies through an energy harvesting approach to drastic reduction of the energy required for a single logic operation. From new renewable energy resources to drastic reduction of power consumption of Information and Communication Technologies devices (playing a key role for the development of the emerging Internet of Things).

In this seminar we will review some of the innovative solutions proposed to few of the cited problems: energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations for ubiquitous energy supply, technological and fundamental energy limits for computation and heat as a vector carrying information.

Bio:

Miquel López-Suarez obtained his PhD in Electronic Engineering in 2014 and nowadays counts with six years of postdoctoral experience in 3 different groups abroad. He has carried out extensive work in the theoretical modeling of the structural, electronic and thermal properties of 2D materials. He has also been active in other energy related activities as modeling, fabrication and testing of NEMS/MEMS based devices for energy applications and information processing. Most recently his research interests shifted to nanoscale thermal transport and to the role of nanostructured materials in the engineering of phononic devices. He has proposed and published several proof-of-concepts such as molecular switches and thermal rectifiers based on graphene nanoribbons or non-linear energy harvesters based on piezoelectric 2D materials.

Hosted by Riccardo Rurali, Materials Simulation & Theory Research Unit, Electronic Structure of Materials Group

Register here to attend by Zoom.