Study level

  • PhD
  • Master of Philosophy

Faculty/School

Faculty of Science

School of Chemistry and Physics

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for Materials Science

Overview

Advancements in miniaturisation and integration of electronics have recently stimulated the explosive progress in wearable electronics. With increasing practical needs, our analysis has indicated that the market values of wearable electronics are predicted to boost up to US$50B in 2022 and US$72B in 2026. Currently, conventional batteries have limited applications in wearable electronics due to their requirements of frequent replacement/recharge and extra-maintenance. This is especially true in temperature or pressure sensors in some circumstances such as remote-control smart home systems or wearable/integrated pacemakers and hearing aids. Therefore, developing maintenance-free and energy-autonomous power sources is of great significance for wide applications in wearable electronics

Research activities

This project aims to design high-performance and high-flexibility new-generation inorganic thermoelectric films with engineered structures/chemistry and assemble them into wearable and high-efficiency flexible thermoelectric devices (F-TEDs) for localised, instant, and controllable power generation.

Research activities include:

  • deliver new-generation inorganic thermoelectric thin films (mainly 2D metal chalcogenides, initiated from bismuth telluride) guided by computation-oriented design, materials nanoengineering strategies, and performance optimisation
  • determine structure-property links for governing the performance by using advanced characterisations and theoretical simulation analysis
  • develop novel devices to realise localised, instant, and controllable power generation or thermoelectric cooling, verifying great practical application values; and strengthen the flexibility, durability, and comfortability of the as-designed wearable TEDs for applications.

Outcomes

Flexible thermoelectric devices (F-TEDs) will be developed for charging portable, wearable, and implantable microelectronics because they can be comfortably attached to human skin, enabling the direct harvesting of electricity from body heat, providing vibration-free, emission-free, and noise-free solid-state power sources that do not require recharging.

Skills and experience

Ideal candidates will have experience in chemistry, physics or engineering.

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor zhigang.chen@qut.edu.au for more information.