Scientific Events

Host: Prof. Christina Scheu / Prof. Dierk Raabe Location: Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH

The Heusler System (For Thermoelectric Application): How You Can Use the periodic table As A Lego Box To Build The States You Are Interested In

The Heusler System (For Thermoelectric Application): How You Can Use the periodic table As A Lego Box To Build The States You Are Interested In
The periodic table becomes one hundred years old just this year. The family of Heusler compounds uses nearly all the elements in the Periodic Table to allow for the design of materials with all sorts of properties. These include: hard and soft magnets, shape memory and magnetocaloric metals, thermoelectric semiconductors, topological insulators, and Weyl semimetals. These are just a few examples of more than 1000 known members of this remarkable class of materials that can display such a wide range of extraordinary multifunctional and tunable properties. Many more remain to be discovered! Just like a box of Lego bricks we can put together certain atoms (valence electrons), arranged in a particular symmetry, to achieve a desired electronic energy band structure. A necessary precondition for such a straightforward approach is a single particle picture: this allows for the prediction of many properties in this versatile class of materials, and equally enables “inverse design”. In my talk I will discuss the simple rules that we have learned to date and what the future might portend for further additions to the large and ever-growing Heusler family. [more]
Go to Editor View