Speaker
Description
Energy considerations are essential in nowadays society and increasingly dependent on mobility and interconnectivity with the need to reduce the environmental impacts related to fossil fuels. The Centre of Physics at the University of Minho is undergoing competitive research in advanced materials for energy. Senen Lanceros is very active in the field of high energy density batteries, consisting in lithium-ion intercalation electrodes with a separator / electrolyte between them, to allow ionic conduction. Transparent thermoelectric thin films for thermal energy harvesting applications are being developed in the group of Carlos Envisaged applications are for hybrid photovoltaic systems and touch screens. The group of Bernardo Almeida researches in perovskite based nanostructured multiferroic insulator oxide materials. The control of the electric and magnetic ferroic orders and their low joule heat dissipation offers pathways for multifunctional low power energy-efficient electronics. By using the electrospinning nanofabrication technique, Etelvina Gomes and co-workers produce novel piezoelectric nanofibers consisting of 3-nitroaniline nanocrystals embedded in PCL polymer. When subjected to a periodically applied force of 3 N, nanofibers generate a piezoelectric output voltage of 7 V, or 122 nWcm-2 power density. José Silva produces thermoelectric generators (TEG) and self-powered photodetectors based on ZnO and SnOx. In the case of the photodetectors, by combining a ZnO pyroelectric film with n-Si/p-SnOx heterojunction into one single structure, self-powered photodetectors based on the pyro-phototronic effect have been developed that demonstrate state-of-the-art performance. The 2D Materials and Devices group from Pedro Alpuim develops innovative techniques to produce 2D materials in the liquid phase over a large scale. Techniques such as liquid-phase exfoliation and shear mixing are studied and integrated to prepare different 2D Materials dispersions.
