News
- Zhongyong’s paper, “Inorganically Connecting Colloidal Nanocrystals Significantly Improves Mechanical Properties” has been accepted for publication in Nano Letters! (May 2023) link
- Shreyas’ paper, “Fabrication of Multiphase Liquid Metal Composites Containing Gas and Solid Fillers: From Pastes to Foams” has been accepted for publication in ACS Applied Engineering Materials! (May 2023) link
- Congratulations to Najam on completing his mechanical engineering PhD! We wish him luck at his faculty position at UET Taxila! (March 2022)
- Aastha’s paper, “Pre-curing Matrix Visocosity Controls Thermal Conductivity of Elastomeric Composites with Compression-Activated Liquid and Solid Metallic Filler Networks,” has been published in Advanced Materials Interfaces (March 2023) link
- Congratulations to our Fall 2022 graduates (Aastha Uppal, Yanan Zhang, Ming-Hsien Sun) and returning graduates (Wilson Kong, 2021)! It is nice to be doing in-person commencement again! (December 2022)
- Yanan Zhang successfully defends her mechanical engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Zhang! (November 2022)
- Congratulations to Ming-Hsien Sun (MS, ME, Fall 2022) on graduating!
- Najam’s paper “Mechanism of Oil-in-Liquid Metal Emulsion Formation” has been accepted for publication in Langmuir (October 2022) link
- Aastha Uppal successfully defends her mechanical engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Uppal! (September 2022)
- Zhongyong’s paper, “Nanocrystal Ordering Enhances Thermal Transport and Mechanics in Single-Domain Colloidal Nanocrystal Superlattices” has been accepted for publication in Nano Letters (May 2022)! link
- Congratulations to Nathan Casey (MS, ChemE, Spring 2022) on graduating (May 2022)!
- Jordan’s paper “A First and Second Law Analysis of a Thermoresponsive Polymer Desiccant Dehumidification and Cooling Cycle,” has been published in Energy Conversion and Management (February 2022)! link
- Aastha’s paper “Enhancing Thermal Transport in Silicone Composites via Bridging Liquid Metal Fillers with Reactive Metal Co-Fillers and Matrix Viscosity Tuning,” has been published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (September 2021)! link
- Najam’s paper “Gallium Oxide-Stablized Oil in Liquid Metal Emulsions,” has been published in Soft Matter (August 2021)! link
- Welcome to Shreyas Kanetkar (CHE) who has joined the group as a new PhD student (June 2021) and Ming-Hsien Sun (ME) who has joined the group as a new MS student (July 2021)!
- Wilson Kong successfully defends his materials science and engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Kong (May 2021)!
- Wilson’s paper “High Thermal Conductivity in Multiphase Liquid Metal and Silicon Carbide Soft Composites” has been published in Advanced Materials Interfaces (May 2021)! link
- Congratulations to Wilson for being awarded the prestigious NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship! He will be doing his postdoc at the Air Force Research Laboratory where he will study new chemistries for liquid metal particles and their corresponding optoelectronic properties. (March 2021)
- Congratulations to Jordan Kocher for being awarded the IBUILD Fellowship! He is among the inaugural cohort of fellowship winners within the Building Technologies Office at the Department of Energy. He will be doing his doctorate degree at Georgia Tech where he will study the use of thermoresponsive polymers for dehumidification and air conditioning. (March 2021) link
- Zhongyong Wang successfully defends his materials science and engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Wang (Jan 2021)!
- Seid’s paper “A Machine Learning Based Approach for Phononic Crystal Property Discovery” has been published in the Journal of Applied Physics (June 2020)! link
- Wilson and Shah’s paper “Oxide-Mediated Mechanisms of Gallium Foam Generation and Stabilization during Shear Mixing in Air” has been published in Soft Matter (May 2020)! link
- Prathamesh Vartak successfully defends his materials science and engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Vartak (April 2020)!
- Seid Sadat successfully defends his mechanical engineering PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Sadat (March 2020)!
- Zhongyong’s paper “Ligand Crosslinking Boosts Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal Solids” as been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie (February 2020)! link
- Prathamesh’s paper “Solution and Solid-State Characterization of PbSe Precursors” as been accepted for publication in ACS Omega (January 2020)! link
- Prathamesh’s paper “Tin(IV) Methylselenolate as a Low Temperature SnSe Precursor and Conductive ‘Glue’ Between Colloidal Nanocrystals” as been accepted for publication in ChemNanoMat (December 2019)! link
- Aastha’s paper “Pressure-Activated Thermal Transport via Oxide Shell Rupture in Liquid Metal Capsule Beds” as been accepted for publication in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (December 2019)! link
- Robert gave an invited talk on “Thermal Storage and Interface Materials for Electronics Thermal Management” at the workshop on Next-Generation Dielectric Materials for Microelectronics/Electrical Applications in Cambridge, MA (December 2019)
- Robert gave an invited talk entitled “Engineered Particle-Particle Contacts for Improved Thermal Interface Materials” at the 226th ECS Meeting in Atlanta, GA (October 2019)
- Wilson’s paper “Oxide-Mediated Formation of Chemically Stable Tungsten-Liquid Metal Mixtures for Enhanced Thermal Interfaces” is now published in Advanced Materials (September 2019)! link
- Robert has been selected to co-organize the next workshop on “Thermal Transport at the Nanoscale” which will take place in Telluride during Summer 2022! (June 2019)
- Robert gave an invited talk entitled “Nanoscale Aspects of Thermal Transport at Particle-Particle Interfaces” at the Telluride Science Research Center Workshop on Thermal Transport at the Nanoscale (June 2019)
- Congratulations to Matt Ralphs (PhD, ME, Spring 2019), Jordan Kocher (MS, ME, Spring 2019) and Ashish Rana (MS, ME, Summer 2019) on graduating!
- Matt successfully defends his Ph.D. Dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Ralphs! (February 2019)
- Matt’s paper, “Thermal Conductivity Enhancement of Soft Polymer Composites through Magnetically Induced Percolation and Particle-Particle Contact Engineering” is now published in Advanced Materials Interfaces! (February 2019) link
- Welcome to Theodore Ndukaife (ME) who has joined the group as a new PhD student!
- Matt’s paper, “Buckling of Magnetically Formed Filler Fiber Columns Under Compression Increases Thermal Resistance of Soft Polymer Composites” is now published in the Journal of Heat Transfer! (January 2019) link
- Zhongyong’s paper, “Precursors for PbTe, PbSe, SnTe, and SnSe Synthesized Using Diphenyl Dichalcogenides” is now published in Chemical Communications! (August 2018) link
- Welcome to Yanan Zhang (ME) who has joined the group as a new PhD student (August 2018)!
- Konrad and Robert’s paper, “Probability of Conductive Bond Formation in a Percolating Network of Nanowires with Fusible Tips” is now published in Applied Physics Letters! (March 2018) link
- Matt’s paper, “In Situ Alloying of Thermally Conductive Polymer Composites by Combining Liquid and Solid Metal Microadditives,” is now published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces! (January 2018) link
- Congratulations to Emil Joseph who is beginning a full time employment position at GlobalFoundries! (January 2018)
- Welcome to Wilson Kong (MSE), Sanuj Jain (ME), Ashish Rana (ME), Aaron Schierbrock (AE), and Chandler Scheitlin (ME), who have joined the research group! (January 2018)
- Congratulations to Robert for being Co-PI on a new Semiconductor Research Corporation award for “Liquid Metal Coated Particles for Thermally Conductive Polymer Composites.” (November 2017)
- Robert gives an invited talk at the 232nd ECS Meeting on “Thermoelectric Thin Films and Nanocomposites Synthesized Via Solution-Phase Chemistry” (October 2017)
- Congratulations to Shrinil Shah who is beginning a full time employment position at GlobalFoundries! (October 2017)
- Welcome to Ninad Sonje (ME) who has joined the research group! (September 2017)
- Congratulations to Robert for winning a new research award entitled “Evaluation of the SolarThermiX Phase Change Material for Load Shifting in SRP’s Service Area.” This award is being sponsored by a public power utility company in Arizona, SRP (August 2017)
- Congratulations to Robert for being Co-PI on a new NSF award entitled “Ultrasonic Enhancement of Heat and Mass Transfer in Sorption Processes.” This award is being led by Patrick Phelan and fellow Co-PIs, Liping Wang and Mark Miner! (August 2017) link
- Congratulations to Prajwal Nagaraj who is beginning a full time employment position at ASM International NV! (August 2017)
- Robert discusses STEM outreach and education with 6-12 graders at the Chief Science Officer Summer Institute. These Chief Science Officers are elected by their peers at their respective schools to be STEM liaisons for their peers, schools, and communities. More information on this exciting program can be found at the Arizona Chief Science Officer website.
- Welcome to Emil Joseph who has joined the research group! (July 2017)
- Congratulations to Sujal Tipnis who is beginning a full time employment position at ANSYS Fluent! (July 2017)
- Robert gives a talk entitled “Thermoelectric Properties of Semiconductor Thin Films and Nanocomposites Synthesized Via Solution-Phase Chemistry” at the ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference. (July 2017)
- Robert gives an invited talk entitled “Nanostructured Inorganic Materials for Thermal Storage and Thermoelectricity Made Via Solution-Phase Synthesis” at the 2017 EITA Conference on New Materials, Nanotechnology and New Energy. (July 2017)
- Congratulations to Nicholas Kemme who is beginning a full time employment position at General Atomics! (May 2017)
- Congratulations to Nicholas Kemme (M.S. – Mechanical Engineering), Prajwal Nagaraj (M.S. – Mechanical Engineering), Shrinil Shah (M.S. – Mechnical Engineering), Sujal Tipnis (M.S. – Mechanical Engineering), Samuel Mokdad (B.S. – Mechanical Engineering), and Jordan Kocher (B.S.E. – Mechanical Engineering) for graduating! (May 2017)
- Robert gives a talk entitled “Solution-Phase Processing Routes to Metal Chalcogenide Thermoelectric Thin Films” at the Spring MRS Meeting (April 2017)
- Congratulations to Robert on winning an NSF CAREER award for his proposal, “Phononic Properties of Colloidal Nanocrystal Superlattices”! (March 2017) link
- Robert joins the editorial board of Scientific Reports, a journal published by Nature Publishing Group (Jan 2017)
- Robert joins the editorial board of Smart Science, a journal published by Taylor & Francis Group (Dec 2016)
- Yuanyu graduates with her Ph.D. Congratulations Dr. Ma! (Dec 2016)
- Robert gives a talk entitled, “Solution-Phase Synthesis Routes to Thermoelectric Thin Films and Nanocomposites” at the ASME IMECE conference (November 2016)
- Yuanyu’s paper, “Thermoelectric Properties of Copper Chalcogenide Alloys Deposited via the Solution-Phase Using a Thiol-Amine Solvent Mixture,” is now published in RSC Advances! (Oct 2016) link
- Robert gives an invited talk at the workshop on Thermal Transport at the Nanoscale in Telluride. (June 2016)
- Robert gives an invited talk at UC San Diego. (June 2016)
- Congratulations to Minglu for being selected as an Outstanding Dissertation Award Finalist for the 2015-2016 Academic Year! (April 2016)
- Seid’s paper, “Colloidal Nanocrystal Superlattices as Phononic Crystals: Plane Wave Expansion Modeling of Phonon Band Structure,” is now published in RSC Advances! (April 2016) link
- Robert gives a talk entitled, “Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal Solids – The Effects of Ligand Chemistry and Nanocrystal Packing” at the MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix (March 2016)
- Robert gives an invited talk at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering at A*STAR in Singapore (Jan 2016)
- Robert gives two talks at the Micro/Nanoscale Heat & Mass Transfer International Conference in Singapore (Jan 2016)
- Minglu’s paper “Modifying Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal Solids with Surface Chemistry” is now published in ACS Nano! (Dec 2015) link
- Minglu becomes the group’s first Ph.D. graduate. Congratulations Dr. Liu! (Dec 2015)
- Lab Holiday Dinner (Dec 2015)
- Robert gives a talk entitled, ” Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal-Based Materials” at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston (Nov 2015)
- Minglu’s paper, “Size-Dependent Melting Behavior of Colloidal In, Sn, and Bi Nanocrystals,” is now published in Scientific Reports! (Nov 2015) link
- Robert gives a talk entitled, ” Thermal Transport in Colloidal Nanocrystal-Based Materials” at the ASME IMECE conference in Houston (Nov 2015)
- Robert gives an invited talk entitled, “Colloidal Nanocrystal Composites with High and Low Thermal Conductivity” at the 228th ECS Meeting (Oct 2015)
- Welcome to Sharan Kishore (ME), Prajwal Nagaraj (ME), Shrinil Shah (ME) who have joined the group as M.S. students as well as Sam Mokdad (ME) and Jordan Kocher (ME) who have joined the group as B.S.E. students! (Sept 2015)
- Congratulations to Robert on winning a NSF award in the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program for his proposal, “Colloidal Nanocrystal Routes to Inorganic Nanocomposite Thermoelectric Materials”! (Aug 2015) link
- Welcome to Prathamesh Vartak, who has joined the group as a PhD student in MSE! (Aug 2015)
- Congratulations to Kunal on graduating with his MS in Mechanical Engineering and beginning his new job at ASM International NV (Aug 2015)
- Yuanyu publishes her work, “Solution-Phase Synthesis and Thermal Conductivity of Nanostructured CdSe, In2Se3, and Composites Thereof” in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A! (May 2015) link
- Welcome to Manish Nayini, who has joined the group as a Mechanical Engineering M.S. student! (May 2015)
- Robert gives an invited talk entitled “Thermal Transport and Storage in Colloidal Nanocrystal-Based Materials” at the Spring MRS Meeting in San Francisco (April 2015)
- Minglu publishes his work, “Metal Matrix – Metal Nanoparticle Composites with Tunable Melting Temperature and High Thermal Conductivity for Phase-Change Thermal Storage” in the journal ACS Nano! (February 2015) link
- Congratulations to Abbas Jaber on graduating with his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and beginning his new job at Arizona Public Service! (December 2014)
- Minglu presents his work “Metallic Phase Change Nanocomposites with Tunable Melting Temperature and High Thermal Conductivity” at IMECE. (November 2014)
- Welcome to Kunal Parikh, who has joined the group as a Mechanical Engineering MS student! (September 2014)
- Congratulations on graduating to Ben Duong (MS, Chemical Engineering), Leah Haling (MS, Mechanical Engineering), Kyle Ness (BS Mechanical Engineering) and Jason Trevithick (BS Chemical Engineering). (May 2014)
- Congratulations to Minglu Liu for winning a Poster Presentation Award at the MRS Spring 2014 Meeting. His poster is entitled “Designer Thermal Storage Composites Using Monodisperse Nanoparticle Ensembles.” (April 2014)
- Congratulations on graduating to Abbas Jaber (BS, Mechanical Engineering). (December 2013)
- Lab Holiday Dinner (December 2013)
- Robert delivers a thermal energy presentation to a 4th grade classroom at Basha Elementary School. (November 2013)
- Welcome to Ben Duong, Jason Trevithick, and Manoj Bangaru Sreenivasulu, who have all recently joined the group! (September 2013)
- Welcome to HsinWei Wu, who has joined the group as a Materials Science PhD student! (August 2013)
- Minglu publishes his work entitled “Phase change nanocomposites with tunable melting temperature and thermal energy density” in the journal Nanoscale! (August 2013) link
- Robert gives a talk entitled “Designer Thermal Storage Composites Using Size-Dependent Melting and Monodisperse Nanoparticle Ensembles” at the ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference in Minneapolis, MN (August 2013)
- Andre Fuentes graduates with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and starts a position at Frito Lay. Congratulations! (May 2013)
- Robert gives a talk entitled “Designer Thermal Storage Composites Using Monodisperse Nanoparticle Ensembles” at the Spring MRS Meeting in San Francisco (April 2013)
- Congratulations to Robert on winning an AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award! (Mar 2013)
- Robert presents research on thermoelectric devices to students from Basha High School (Feb 2013)
- Norm Fish graduates with a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and starts a position at Intel. Congrats! (Dec 2012)
- Andre Fuentes and Kyle Ness both win Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative Awards. Congrats! (Dec 2012)
- Leah Haling and Seid “Ben” Sadat join the group! (Oct 2012)
- Abbas Jabar wins the Peter Stein Measurement Engineering Scholarship. Congratulations! (Sept 2012)
- Robert gives an invited talk “Phase Transitions in Colloidal Nanoparticle-Based Materials” at the XI International Conference on Nanostructured Materials in Rhodes, Greece (August 2012)
- Congratulations to Robert on winning a NSF award in the Thermal Transport Processes Program! (Aug 2012)
- Congratulations to Robert on winning a NSF BRIGE award! (Aug 2012)
- Xiying Chen won 3rd place at the Ninth Annual Materials Bowl, sponsored by the Phoenix Chapter of ASM International. Congratulations! (April, 2012)
- Gloveboxes are up and running!
