UNN research team wins science and technology projects competition
A team of scientists from the UNN Physics and Technology Research Institute (PTRI) won a competition for science and technology projects held by the Nizhny Novgorod Research and Education Centre (REC). The prize was awarded for the development of new high-temperature thermoelectric materials and methods to obtain them. The project was supervised by Dr. Mikhail Dorokhin, leading researcher of the PTRI Solid State Electronics and Optoelectronics Department.
"High-temperature thermoelectric materials are used, in particular, in space industry for generating power in the radioisotope thermoelectric generator system. The higher the material's efficiency, the less material needs to be carried into orbit to produce the required power. An efficiency of 10 percent is now considered a very good result. Therefore scientists are faced with the task of finding new materials that would be more efficient. We have proposed several materials, considered methods for obtaining them that have already been implemented at our institute and some new methods based on their modification," Mikhail Dorokhin said.
"We consider Lobachevsky University and the Nizhny Novgorod Research and Education Centre as a single innovation system. From the very first days of the Research and Education Centre's establishment, the University has been one of its key participants. The effectiveness of our joint work is confirmed by the fact that industrial enterprises and large corporations from Nizhny Novgorod more and more often turn to Lobachevsky University with their requests to solve specific research and technological problems. This is the main purpose of the REC - to connect researchers, teams of engineers and scientists, industrial partners into one system so that fundamental and applied research and development results could eventually become commercial products. Last year's results showed that work is progressing, and this trend will be strengthened in 2023; Lobachevsky University has many projects in its innovation portfolio," noted Mikhail Shiryaev, UNN Vice-Rector for Innovation.
In the future, UNN researchers plan to further develop their project in a number of areas.
"Obtaining the material is not the final result; it is the basis for the future device. Speaking of thermoelectrics, the device also needs electrical contacts. Since it is a high-temperature material, there are special requirements for the contacts. In particular, they must be resistant to degradation when heated to high temperatures," explained Mikhail Dorokhin.
