Faculty News
Making His Mark Jonathan Malen’s Latest Success: An NSF CAREER Award
Jonathan Malen
Assistant Professor Jonathan Malen, who joined MechE in 2009, is already making his mark in the Department. In early 2011, he won a Young Investigator Award from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). This three- year, $360,000 grant is funding Malen’s ongoing research into how the vibrational properties of small organic molecules can
redefine thermal management strategies. Less than a year later, Malen has followed this success with another impressive achievement. He recently received a five-year, $400,000 Early Faculty Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foun- dation (NSF). Provided by the Thermal Transport
Processes program within NSF’s Chemi- cal, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems division, the new funding will allow Malen to investigate thermal energy transport in organic-inor- ganic hybrid materials. His work will help make these hybrid materials a viable, cost-effective solution for manufacturing an array of electronics, photonics, and energy- conversion devices. “The AFOSR Young Investigator Award and the NSF CAREER Award are two of the most prestigious honors that a junior faculty member can achieve,” notes MechE Department Head Nadine Aubry. “The fact that Jon Malen has won both awards so quickly speaks volumes about the quality and relevancy of his studies in thermal transport.” Since 2004, junior faculty members at MechE have won a total of 16 AFOSR/ONR Young Investigator and NSF CAREER Awards. “It’s gratifying to see Jon Malen not only continue this tradition, but make an impact in such a short time period,” adds Aubry. “We are delighted to celebrate this most recent accomplishment.”
THERMAL MANAGEMENT: A CRITICAL CHALLENGE Scalable solution-based manufacturing makes hybrid mate- rials an attractive alternative to single-crystal semiconduc- tors for electronics, photonics, and energy conversion. For these applications, the organic-inorganic interface has been
leveraged to control electronic transport, but thermal proper- ties remain uncultivated. Malen’s CAREER Award will fund a pioneering study of thermal transport in two novel hybrid materials: self-assem- bled monolayers (SAMs) and nanocrystal superlattices (NCSLs). SAMs are 2-D molecular crystals that form on inorganic surfaces, and NCSLs are 3-D arrays of inorganic spheres, spaced by organic molecules. By coupling and aligning dissimilar vibrational states in the organic and in- organic components via chemistry, Malen aims to produce diverse thermal transport properties and unprecedented control of the thermal phonon spectrum. Malen’s new ability to manipulate the phonon spectrum will broadly impact a wide range of appli- cations in energy and biology. With shorter phonon wavelengths (<10 nm), hybrid- based phonon-optics would achieve much higher resolution than visible-light optics with longer wavelengths. The resulting non-destructive imaging could prove extremely useful in assays of biolog- ical, organic, and inorganic samples. Solution-based manufacturing and ideal electronic properties make hybrids well
suited for tackling the widespread energy challenge. Diverse thermal conductivities would make their application highly versatile. For example, in solar cells it would be preferable to have high thermal conductivity in order to dissipate heat, while in thermoelectric materials it is preferable to have low thermal conductivity in order to increase efficiency.
REACHING OUT TO YOUNG SCIENTISTS Jonathan Malen’s NSF CAREER proposal also includes an integrated educational plan that will help young scientists learn more about the complex topic of thermal transport. He will create an educational kit for high-school students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools that aims to demystify this subject. The kit includes a “Phonon Simulator,” a model spring-mass system that simulates vibrations in matter, as well as inter- active online software tools.
Malen will also lead workshops in thermal transport at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and the Siemens Competition, aimed at jointly recruiting young scholars into the field of engineering.•
CARNEGIE MECH 5
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