OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — A team of researchers led by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory helped advance the development of solid-state cooling technology, which they said has the potential to provide eco-friendly alternatives to current cooling technology.
In a release, they said solid-state cooling technology could be used to cool things like food, vehicles and electronics without relying on refrigerant liquids, moving parts or gases. Solid-state technology could be used to cool things with few waste products in a quiet and lightweight system that gives people precise temperature control.
The team "bridged a knowledge gap in atomic-scale heat motion," effectively taking a step towards developing materials that would be used in solid-state cooling. ORNL said the researchers used neutron-scattering instruments to examine materials that could be candidates for use in the new technology at an atomic scale.
The researchers examined a kind of alloy that can be deformed and returned to its original shape. The release said the alloy absorbs and releases heat when subjected to a magnetic field — a behavior known as the magnetocaloric effect.
“Neutron scattering shows that the cooling capacity of the magnetic shape-memory alloy is tripled by the heat contained within these local magnon-phonon hybrid modes that form because of the disorder in the system,” said Michael Manley in the ORNL release, the leader of the study. “This finding reveals a path to make better materials for solid-state cooling applications for societal needs.”
