Understanding and controlling heat transfer is a problem of significant interest in practical applications concerned with heat management, as well as with conversion of heat in other forms of energy. Heat dissipation is a problem in current technologies, e.g., microelectronics, but heat dissipation can also be a source of clean energy, if this waste heat can be transformed using appropriate devices. There are several instances that show how dissipated heat can be converted in other forms of energy, e.g., thermoelectricity, or how the associated temperature gradients can be used to control the motion of colloidal particles or induce separation in multicomponent mixtures, hence, using thermal gradients to rectify the pervasive Brownian motion that becomes relevant a small scales.
Heat transport at small scales, from nano to micrometer lengths, is a generic problem that features in a wide range of disciplines; biology (molecular motors), physics, chemistry and engineering (chemical reactions at surfaces, microelectronic devices, condensation-evaporation processes) or in medical applications (thermal therapy treatments).
L. Gammaitoni speaks at the workshop Heat transfer at small scales (October 14, 2013 to October 16, 2013) held at the University of Zaragoza in Spain.
For more information please check the workshop program here: program.