Minimizing thermal conductivity of crystalline material with optimal nanostructure
Professor Junichiro Shiomi et al. from the University of Tokyo aimed to reduce the thermal conductivity of semiconductor materials by reducing the internal nanostructure. The researchers successfully minimized thermal conductivity by designing, fabricating and evaluating the optimal nanostructure-multilayer materials through materials informatics (MI), which combines machine learning and molecular simulation. In 2017, this research group developed a method to design an optimal structure that minimizes or maximizes thermal conductivity via MI based on computational science. However, it had not been experimentally demonstrated, and preparation of nano-scale structures and realization of an optimal structure based on property measurements were desired.