Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Jason Ross Sciences

Specific Heat Measurements of Silicon Nanowires for Improved Thermoelectrics

Jason’s research group has recently developed the nanocalorimeter, a membrane-based calorimeter which has ten times less addenda heat capacity than any known calorimeter, allowing for the first accurate measurements of nanogram sized samples. With this, Jason proposes to measure the specific heat of silicon nanowires in response to recent thermal transport studies. These studies have found that the thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires decreases with decreasing nanowire diameter. Such a characteristic means silicon nanowires have a big future in clean energy thermoelectric devices. But before we can properly exploit them in technology, their thermal dynamics must be better understood. Directly related to the phonon density of states, specific heat will help Jason explain the decrease in thermal conductivity by investigating phenomena such as phonon confinement and surface vibrational states.

Profile image of Jason Ross
Major: Physics
Mentor: Mentor: Professor Frances Hellman
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