About the position
Society is undergoing an energy revolution, decisively shifting away from fossil fuels. While much of the focus is on batteries, thermal energy storage will play a major role as complimentary energy storage technology. In addition, the materials used for the electronic components in devices such as capacitors, needs to be evolved to enable recycling and circular economies.
Ionic plastic crystals are supramolecular materials made from small globular organic and inorganic molecular ions. Their rare combination of long-range crystal structure and local molecular orientational freedom enables properties like piezoelectricity and ferroelectricity, and high entropy phase transitions. It is this unique set of properties that makes them extremely interesting for thermal energy storage, caloric cooling devices, transducers, actuators and sensors – all essential…