Metallic Thermoelectrics: Machine-Learning Discovery, Additive Manufacturing, and Magnetotransport

Date

Jun 23, 2026

Time

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Speaker

Associate Prof. Mona Zebarjadi

Affiliation

University of Virginia, USA

Language

en

Main Topic

Materialien

Host

Martina Javorka

Description

Traditional thermoelectric materials suffer from low thermal conductivity, which blocks passive heat dissipation during electronic cooling. To overcome this, metallic thermoelectric materials are emerging as a robust alternative. By combining high thermal conductivity with a large power factor, metals can simultaneously pump heat actively and conduct it passively, creating highly efficient active heat sinks. To explore this vast design space, we developed a curated database of binary alloys and a hierarchical machine-learning framework to predict temperature-dependent thermopower. This framework successfully identified and validated promising, earth-abundant candidates like Ni-Fe, Ni-Co, and Cu-Ni. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these alloys are highly compatible with additive manufacturing. Using Directed Energy Deposition with low-cost, industrial powders, we successfully fabricated structures that maintain the thermoelectric performance, bridging the gap from digital discovery to large-scale, scalable production. Expanding beyond conventional transport, we also leverage magnetism and topology to manipulate heat in metallic systems. By utilizing spin-orbit coupling and symmetry-breaking mechanisms, we show how quantum features—specifically, large Berry curvature—can be engineered to drive pronounced anomalous Hall, Nernst, and Thomson responses. Using density functional theory, we demonstrate how transition-metal intercalation in 2H-TaS2 systematically tunes electronic bonding, magnetic phases, and anomalous transport. Moving to thin films, we show that substrate-induced strain and epitaxial orientation in collinear antiferromagnetic FeRh explicitly break inversion symmetry, unlocking a finite Berry curvature forbidden in bulk form. Finally, we demonstrate that this structural engineering directly tailors the temperature span of first-order magnetic transitions, allowing precise control over thermomagnetic profiles.

Links

• Seminars at the IFW

Last modified: Jun 16, 2026, 7:37:23 AM