Invited Speakers
The organisers of ECT 2013 are proud to confirm the following invited speakers:
Mauro Brignone (Centro Ricerche FIAT, Italy)
Dr. Mauro Brignone took his degree in Physics at the University of Torino and his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Piemonte Orientale. Mauro started to work at FIAT Research Centre in 2002, first in the “Micro and Nanotechnology” department and subsequently in the “Materials” department (Group Materials Labs) where is responsible for the “Advanced Metals” group. He is specialized in semiconductors physics and started his experience with organic, inorganic and hybrid light emitting devices. Since 2004 Mauro has been working on systems for energy production studying and developing photovoltaic cells (DSSC and thin film) and thermoelectric materials and systems. He is expert in materials characterization techniques (AFM, SEM, FIB, XRD, DSC) and in photovoltaic and thermoelectric characterization. Mauro has developed efficient skutterudites materials through low cost metallurgical synthesis and has designed and fabricated a full thermoelectric generator for gasoline passenger cars. Mauro has participated in several EU funded projects, is author or co-author of numerous scientific articles and international patents.
Sylvie Hébert (CRISMAT, France)
Sylvie Hébert received her PhD in July 1998 on the pinning of vortices by columnar defects in high Tc superconductors (CRISMAT laboratory), and then did two post-doctoral stays at the Imperial College in London (1998 - 1999) and KULeuven in Leuven, Belgium (2000) on the pinning of vortices by columnar defects and by antidots respectively. Then she got her CNRS research position back in CRISMAT, Caen, in October 2000, to work on the magnetic and electrical properties of transition metal oxides, with a special emphasis on Seebeck coefficient. She has been mostly interested by the spin and orbital degeneracy impact on the Seebeck coefficient, and the thermoelectric properties in these strongly correlated materials.
Since 2010, she is the director (together with Bertrand Lenoir, IJL Nancy) of the french CNRS network on Thermoelectricity (GDR Thermoélectricité).
Jan König (Fraunhofer-Institut für Physikalische Messtechnik IPM, Germany)
Dr. Jan D. Koenig is leading the “Thermoelectric Energy Converters” group and is the deputy head of the department "Energy Systems" at Fraunhofer IPM (Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques), Freiburg, Germany. In parallel to the diploma and doctoral theses, advised by Dr. Harald Böttner, he started as project manager at Fraunhofer IPM in different projects regarding thermoelectric material research, measurement systems and module development. Remarkable projects were the design and fabrication of a fully automated material measurement setup and the development of a small scale production of thermoelectric modules. The current activities cover nanoscale bulk and thin film research on Bi2Te3, PbTe and silicide based materials. J. Koenig built up at Fraunhofer IPM a thermoelectric bulk material processing route as well as the high temperature generator fabrication. The development of a high temperature standard for thermoelectric metrology is as well a main topic including a worldwide round-robin test started in 2013.
Qiang Li (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA)
Dr. Qiang Li is a tenured physicist in the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department at US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University in New York. At Brookhaven Lab, he is the head of Advanced Energy Materials Group which studies microscopic and macroscopic properties of complex and nano-structured materials with a view to understanding and developing their application in different energy related technologies. His current research ranges from basic physics and material science studies to the applications of superconducting materials and thermoelectrics.
Tsutomu Iida (Tokyo University of Science, Japan)
Dr. Iida obtained Dr. degree in electrical engineering from Meiji University in 1995 with regard to ion-beam and molecular-beam material synthesis. He obtained B.Eng. and M.Eng. from Meiji University in 1990 and 1992, respectively. He was then a research fellow of The Japan Society for Promotion of Science, and worked at Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, as an invited researcher from The Volkswagen Foundation. Since 1997, he has been working at Tokyo University of Science as a research associate, he is currently a professor at Tokyo University of Science. His current research field is material science to develop appropriate energy conversion materials to avoid the effects of global warming. Since 2001, he started to work with the thermoelectric material synthesis especially environmentally-benign magnesium silicide (Mg2Si). He established the waste heat recovery technology consortium of Japan in 2009 composed of more than 30 industrial companies, 3 governmental sector institutes and 7 universities. His groups are also collaborating European automotive industries and institutes in the thermoelectric technology field.
Jeff Snyder (California Institute of Technology, USA)
G. Jeffrey Snyder obtained his B.S. degree in physics, chemistry and mathematics at Cornell University (1991) focusing on solid state chemistry which he continued during a two year stay at the Max Planck Institut FKF (Festkörperrperforschung) in Stuttgart, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University (1997) where he studied magnetic and magneto-electrical transport properties of metallic perovskites as a Hertz Fellow. He was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the thermoelectrics group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 9 years (1997-2006) where he focused on thermoelectric materials and devices. He is currently a Faculty Associate in materials science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His interests include the discovery of new Zintl phase thermoelectric materials and nanostructured thermoelectric composites using bulk processing, band structure engineering and thermoelectric performance optimization. Dr. Snyder has published over 200 articles, book chapters and patents. He serves as treasurer of the international thermoelectric society.
Since 2010 Dr. Snyder has become one of the world’s most prominent scientists in the field of thermoelectrics, among the top cited authors and highest number of publications in the field (around 1000 citations and over 30 publications per year). His 2008 review article in Nature Materials, is the most cited review article in thermoelectrics.
Xanthippi Zianni (Technological Educational Institution of Chalkida, Greece)
She has received her First Degree in Physics from the Physics Department of the University of Athens (Greece) and her PhD in Theoretical Solid State Physics from the Physics Department of the University of Warwick (UK). She is currently Professor of Physics at the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Sterea Ellada and Research Associate at the Dept. of Microelectronics at the Greek National Research for Scientific Research (NCSR) ‘Demokritos’. She is temporarily vising professor at MATEIS, INSA de Lyon (France).
Her research is in theoretical condensed matter physics and computational modelling. She has worked in: percolation theory, conductivity of disordered media, electrons and phonon properties of low-dimensional semiconductors, magnetic properties of nanoparticles, electronic, thermoelectric and optical properties of semiconductor nanowires and nanocrystals. Her current research focuses on the electronic and thermoelectric properties of nanostructures and on the energy conversion at the nanoscale.