The UCR team has recently determined that graphene composites reach a distinctive thermal percolation threshold at the loading fraction above 20 vol.%. Thermal percolation is a term used to describe formation of the continuous interconnecting network of fillers, allowing heat to travel mostly via these thermal conductive passes rather than through the matrix. The team established that graphene fillers outperformed boron nitride fillers (h-BN) – another highly thermally conductive material – in...

A technology invented by the researchers at the Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center of the University of California, Riverside received the National Innovation Award at TechConnect’s annual convention in Anaheim. TechConnect is a global technology outreach organization dedicated to locating the world’s most promising intellectual property and startup companies across all industries and technology focus areas. The TechConnect World Innovation Conference and Expo connects top...

The vibrational motion of an atom in a crystal propagates to neighboring atoms, which leads to wavelike propagation of the vibrations throughout the crystal. The way in which these natural vibrations travel through the crystalline structure determine fundamental properties of the material. For example, these vibrations determine how well heat and electrons can traverse the material, and how the material interacts with light. Now, researchers have shown that by swapping out just a small...

Engineers at the University of California, Riverside, have demonstrated prototype devices made of an exotic material that can conduct a current density 50 times greater than conventional copper interconnect technology. Current density is the amount of electrical current per cross-sectional area at a given point. As transistors in integrated circuits become smaller and smaller, they need higher and higher current densities to perform at the desired level. Most conventional electrical...

NiO is a promising material for spintronic devices, where signals are transmitted not by electrical currents but rather by spin waves, consisting of propagating disturbances in the ordering of magnetic materials, in a domino-like fashion. The interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Alexander Balandin, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, used ultraviolet Raman spectroscopy to investigate how spin ordering affects the energies of phonons in these materials....

Research, which led to the discovery of new polymorphs of niobium trisulfide, has been featured on the cover of APL Materials. The discovery was a result of cooperation of the researchers from the University of Georgia and University of California – Riverside in the framework of the 2DARE project funded by the National Science Foundation. APL Materials features original, experimental research on significant topical issues within the field of materials science. Read the original paper Link to...

Dr. Alexander A. Balandin, Distinguished Professor and University of California Presidential Chair Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering received two new grants in the nanotechnology field. The one-year $150 K proof-of-concept project funded by the Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA) is entitled “Phonon Engineered Materials for Fine-Tuning the Career Recombination.” This project deals with an application of the nanoscale phonon engineering concept,...

Ece Aytan, Graduate Student Researcher and PhD student in Professor A.A. Balandin’ Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center received the Best Research Poster – Research Cooperation Award at the 3rd Annual SHINES EFRC Symposium conducted this month at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines hotel in La Jolla, California. The Spins and Heat in Nanoscale Electronic Systems (SHINES) is an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) funded with $12 million grant from the US Department of Energy. Ece...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — Controlling the flow of heat through semiconductor materials is an important challenge in developing smaller and faster computer chips, high-performance solar panels, and better lasers and biomedical devices. For the first time, an international team of scientists led by a researcher at the University of California, Riverside has modified the energy spectrum of acoustic phonons— elemental excitations, also referred to as quasi-particles, that spread heat...