Thermal properties as a research area focuses on the quantitative characterization, prediction, and control of how materials and systems store, conduct, and exchange heat. It encompasses investigation of thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, thermal diffusivity, thermal expansion, and related transport coefficients across temperature, pressure, and phase regimes. Research typically integrates experimental calorimetry and thermal analysis, steady-state and transient heat-flow methods, and atomistic or continuum simulations to elucidate phonon, electron, and radiative contributions. This domain underpins advances in thermal management, energy conversion, high-temperature materials, cryogenics, and micro/nanoscale heat transfer, often coupling with mechanical, electrical, and structural behavior.
Mountain permafrost is warming and thawing worldwide due to climate change, with ground temperature being a key control of its mechanical stability. Heat conduction is the dominant mode of heat transfer in frozen ground, ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 18, 2025
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For much of my career, I have been fascinated by the ways in which materials behave when we reduce their dimensions to the nanoscale. Over and over, I've learned that when we shrink a material down to just a few nanometers ...
Femtosecond laser-induced periodic surface structures can be used to control thermal conductivity in thin film solids, report researchers from Japan. Their innovative method, which leverages high-speed laser ablation, produces ...
Nanophysics
Dec 12, 2025
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107
In a new publication, Professor José-María Martín-Olalla, from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Seville, has described the direct link between the vanishing of specific heats at absolute zero—a ...
General Physics
Dec 10, 2025
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143
What if your conscious experiences were not just the chatter of neurons, but were connected to the hum of the universe? In a paper published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, I present new evidence indicating that conscious ...
Diamond is famous in material science for being the best natural heat conductor on Earth—but new research reveals that, at the atomic scale, it can briefly trap heat in unexpected ways. The findings could influence how scientists ...
Optics & Photonics
Dec 9, 2025
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37
A collaborative research team from the Institute of Solid State Physics, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has discovered a high-energy-density barocaloric effect in the plastic ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 4, 2025
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71
As more devices get piled onto computer chips to increase processing power capacity, heat generation becomes increasingly concentrated. This heat must be removed to keep chip performance high, but is currently achieved by ...
Nanophysics
Nov 26, 2025
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114
Researchers at the University of Arkansas and the University of Michigan have reported the first use of ultra-low power temperature sensors using graphene-based solar cells. The test is the first hurdle in developing autonomous ...
Nanomaterials
Nov 12, 2025
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91
Mechanical Engineering Professor Alan McGaughey of Carnegie Mellon University recently coordinated the Phonon Olympics, bringing together developers and expert users to benchmark three leading open-source thermal conductivity ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 10, 2025
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