People

Jeff Snyder

Faculty Associate in Applied Physics and Materials Science; Lecturer in Materials Science

Jeff Snyder Is a Faculty Associate in the Materials Science Department at Caltech and a Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics - Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the thermoelectrics group at JPL for 9 years (1997-2006). He received his B.S. in physics, chemistry and mathematics at Cornell University and his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University (1997) where he was a Hertz Fellow. His research interests include Solid State Chemistry, Physics and Engineering of thermoelectric and other energy materials. His current research focuses on Thermoelectric Materials and Engineering of Thermoelectric Devices. Since joining JPL/Caltech in 1997, Dr. Snyder has been investigating novel thermoelectric materials including antimonide Zintl phases, such as Yb14MnSb11 and Zn4Sb3, Band Structure Engineering of thermoelectrics and nanostructured thermoelectric composites. He has developed capabilities for high temperature transport properties measurements of bulk materials. He has implemented novel empirical and analytical models for efficient power generation and spot cooling for both bulk and thin film devices. He has designed and tested elecrochemical MEMS micro-thermoelectric devices, portable power sources and energy harvesting systems for terrestrial and space applications. He has also participated as a consultant on a number of thermoelectric projects. Dr. Snyder has over 150 publications on thermoelectric materials, devices and applications. Dr. Snyder is a board member and Treasurer for the International Thermoelectric Society, organizer of the Materials Research Lectures at Caltech, and has been an Adjunct Professor at Cal Poly Pomona teaching MTE208 Electronic Materials.

Teruyuki Ikeda

Visiting Associate in Materials Science

Since 2008, Dr. Ikeda is PRESTO Researcher of Japan Science and Technology Agency with vising scholar appointment at Caltech. Dr. Teruyuki Ikeda recieved Dr. Eng. degree from Kyoto University (2000) for a study on thermodynamics, defects, and diffusion in intermetallic compounds. He worked with fabrication and mechanical properties of porous metals when he was a Research Associate at the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research of Osaka University (1999 - 2004). Since joining Caltech in 2004 he has been studying nanostructuring of bulk thermoelectric materials utilizing various sorts of phase transformations.

Yanzhong Pei

Senior Postdoctoral Scholar in Material Science

Yanzhong Pei received his Ph. D from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2008. His Ph. D. work on thermoelectric skutterudites earned him the 2007 Goldsmid award for outstanding Ph.D. research. He also spent a year at Michigan State University as a Visiting Research Associate in 2008. He had several years experience on synthesis and transport properties of thermoelectric materials especially on filled CoSb3 Skuterudite. He joined TE group at Caltech as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Materials Science, mainly to work on nano-structured composites for waste heat recovery thermoelectric applications.

Aaron Lalonde

Postdoctoral Scholar in Materials Science

Aaron received his Ph.D. from Michigan Technological University in 2010. His Ph.D. work focused on synthesis and characterization of PbSnTe-based materials. Aaron's experience and interests are in materials synthesis and processing as well as setup/design of equipment used for mechanical alloying, hot pressing, and thermoelectric property characterization. Since joining the thermoelectric group at Caltech he has developed a new Rapid Hot Press system as well as developed new processing techniques for thermoelectric materials.

Alex Zevalkink Williams

Alex, a NSF Fellow, is studying the synthesis and doping of new thermoelectric Zintl phases, focusing on low-cost, earth abundant systems such as Ca5Al2Sb6 and Ca3AlSb3 based Zintl Phases.

Heng Wang

Heng is studying the synthesis and optimization of Lead Selenide Lead Telluride based thermoelectric materials with a focus on the effect of deformation potential in producing high effieiency materials.

Nick Heinz

Nick is studying the synthesis, microstructure and properties of nanostructured and functionally graded thermoelectrics using directional solidification, zone leveling and TEM investigations.

Gregory Pomrehn

Greg is studying phase stability of Zn-Sb phases from first principles thermodynamics and validating the results with experiments to detect the phase boundaries.

Zach Gibbs

Zach is exploring the use of density functional theory to direct band structure engineering of lead telluride thermoelectric materials.

Yinglu Tang

Yinglu is studying the formation of nanostructured thermoelectrics for cooling applicaitons

David Brown

David is studying Thermopower measurements and effects of interfaces.

Tristan Day

Tristan is studying a new class of highly disoreded thermoelectric materials.

Hyun-Sik Kim

Hyun-Sik, a Samsung Fellow, is studying advanced Bi2Te3 type materials for thermoelectrics.

Saurabh Bajaj

Saurabh is modeling phase diagrams for thermoelectric nanocomposites.

Wolfgang Zeier
Wolfgang, joint student from University of Mainz, Germany and fellow of the Carl-Zeiss Foundation is studying quaternary selenides for thermoelectrics with a focus on the influence of structural aspects and doping.

Hsin-Jay Wu
Ph. D. Student, with fellowship from Taiwan's National Science Council is from National Tsing-Hua University of Taiwan working at Caltech. Hsin-jay is studying the phase diagrams in the quaternary Pb-Ag-Sb-Te system by using CALPHAD method, and microstructural analysis.

Xianlong Cao
Lecturer and Ph. D. Candidate from Chongqing University and China National Engineering Research Center for Magnesium Alloys. Xianlong Cao received his M.S. in Wuhan Research Institute of Materials Protection, China Academy of Machinery Science and Technology. He worked surface engineering of magnesium alloys and recently also focused on synthesis and properties of magnesium silicide and lead telluride based thermoelectric materials.

Sossina M. Haile

Vilupanur Ravi

Jean-Pierre Fleurial, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jean-Pierre Fleurial has been group supervisor of the Materials and Device Technologies group at JPL which includes the Thermoelectrics Team. Dr. Fleurial earned his Ph.D. in solid state physics and materials science from the National Polytechnique Institute of Lorraine, France, in 1988. During his Ph.D., he developed new growth techniques and theoretical models demonstrating that high quality single crystals of Bi2Te3 can have ZT values close to those usually achieved only with solid solutions. In 1988, Dr. Fleurial came to JPL as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate and joined the permanent staff in 1990. He was first involved with the optimization of Si-Ge alloys for thermoelectric power generation. He has calculated ternary and quaternary phase diagrams of Si-Ge alloys with dopants, and also performed diffusion and solid solubility studies, liquid phase epitaxial growth of Si-Ge. More recently, Dr. Fleurial has been actively involved with the study of novel promising thermoelectric materials, in particular compounds with the skutterudite structure. Dr. Fleurial has served on the board of the International Thermoelectric Society.

Thierry Caillat, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Thierry Caillat is a senior member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology and task leader for the JPL Thermoelectrics Team. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science in 1991 from the National Polytechnique Institute of Lorraine, France. He then received a National Research Council Fellowship to study new materials for thermoelectric applications at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He joined the permanent staff at JPL in 1994. His primary research interests have focused on the identification and development of new thermoelectric materials and devices. He has developed transport properties models to optimize these materials for thermoelectric applications. In the last five years, he has played a key role in identifying several families of thermoelectric materials with superior thermoelectric properties, including skutterudites and b-Zn4Sb3-based materials. More recently, he has been involved in the studies of the integration of some of these new materials into advanced, segmented unicouples with superior performance. He is the author of over 30 articles in refereed technical journals and over 40 articles in technical conference proceedings. Dr. Caillat holds two patents on new thermoelectric materials and has two patents pending on new thermoelectric devices. Dr. Caillat is chairman for the International Conference on Thermoelectrics in 2002 and has served on the International Advisory Board and Technical Program Committee of many International Conferences on Thermoelectrics since 1996. He has organized and chaired many sessions on thermoelectrics in various national and international conferences since 1993.

Chen-Kuo Huang, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Chen-Kuo Huang received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing-Hua University (1978), M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing-Hua University (1980), and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University (1988). Dr. Huang is a senior member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology.

Eric Toberer Postdoctoral Scholar 2011
Professor of Physics, Colorado School of Mines
Eric S. Toberer was a Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech. Eric Studied a number of thermoelctric material systems related to Zintl Phases such as Yb14MnSb11, Clathrates, SrZn2Sb2, and Zn4Sb3. In 2011 he won the ITS Young Investigator Award.

Shiho Iwanaga Postdoctoral Scholar 2011

Shiho Iwanaga was involved in the synthesis and characterization of thermoelectric materials, as well as design and building of scanning and bulk Seebeck measurement apparati for bulk and thin film samples.

Andrew (Drew) May, Ph. D. 2010
Postdoctoral Fellow, Oak Ridge National Lab
Drew studied the solid state physics of thermoelectric transport in a variety of materials including La3-xTe4. He was the recipiant of the 2010 Goldsmid Award and the Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prize for outstanding Ph.D. research.

Prof. Franck Gascoin (postdoc), ENSICAEN, France
Richard Blair (JPL postdoc), U. Central Florida
Jeff Sakamoto (JPL Staff), Michigan State University
Ali Saramat (postdoc)

Visiting Professors and Ph.D.

Prof. Hirokazu Tatsuoka (Visiting Faculty), Shizuoka University, Japan
Min Chen, Aalborg University, Denmark (2011)
Prof. Tiejun Zhu, Zhejiang University, China (2011)
Harald Fjeld, University of Oslo, Norway (2011)
Praveen Siwach, National Physical Laboratory, India (2011)
Espen Flage-Larsen (Ph.D.), University of Oslo, Norway (2009)

Visiting Students

Laura Haviez, ENSICAEN Caen, France (2011)
Nils Kristiansen, Aalborg University, Denmark (2011)
Michael Böttger, University of Oslo, Norway (2010)
Tim Bleith, Mainz University, Germany (2010)
Kasper Borup, Aarhus University, Denmark (2010)
Silvan Gariel, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France (2008)

Susan M. Kauslarich, U.C. Davis
Joseph Heremans, Ohio State University
Ken Kurosaki, Shinsuke Yamanaka, Osaka University, Japan
Douglas Medlin, Sandia Laboratories
Øystein Prytz, Johan Taftoe, University of Oslo, Norway
Eckhard Müller, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Wolfgang Seifert, University of Halle, Germany
Christophe Goupil, ENSICAEN Caen, France
Lidong Chen, SIC-CAS Shanghai, China
Bo Brummerstedt Iversen, University Aarhus, Denmark
Chris Dames, U.C. Riverside

Prag Batra, Harker High School, California