Jun Liu
Assistant Professor

- 919-513-1397
- jliu38@ncsu.edu
- Engineering Building III (EB3) 3417
- Visit My Website
Dr. Liu is interested in micro/nano-scale thermal transport and hybrid organic/inorganic functional materials for energy storage, conversion, and management.
Dr. Liu’s graduate students are motivated to learn; they are familiar with both simulation and experiment work, and tend to solve multidisciplinary, challenging problems. His students have the opportunity to learn multidisciplinary topics in optics, electronics, thermal science, materials, and solid state physics.
Dr. Liu teaches Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics at the undergraduate level.
Outside of work, Dr. Liu enjoys travelling and reading.
Education
Mechanical Engineering
University of Colorado, Boulder
Mechanical Engineering
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Research Description
Dr. Liu leads an energy conversion, storage, and management research group focusing on developing computational and experimental tools for understanding nanoscale thermal transport, probing new transport phenomena in micro/nano-scale structures, and applying the results to design thermal management and energy conversion/storage systems with nano-engineered functional materials. He is currently working on (1) developing ultrafast laser-based pump-probe system for characterizing thermal and elastic properties of materials (e.g. TDTR, TRMOKE, Raman); (2) developing numerical simulation tools for understanding energy transport mechanisms in soft matters and hybrid materials (e.g. moledular dynamics, density functional theory, lattice dynamics); (3) establishing novel functional thermal materials, especially soft materials and hybrid materials. Those materials serve as elementary building blocks for thermal management and energy conversion/storage devices and systems with enhanced performance.
Honors and Awards
- NSF CAREER Award, 2020
- Outstanding Dissertation Award, 2013
Publications
- A Ubiquitous Thermal Conductivity Formula for Liquids, Polymer Glass, and Amorphous Solids (vol 37, 104401, 2020)
- Xi, Q., Zhong, J., He, J., Xu, X., Nakayama, T., Wang, Y., … Li, B. (2021, March), CHINESE PHYSICS LETTERS, Vol. 38. https://doi.org/10.1088/0256-307X/38/3/039901
- Evaluating the roles of temperature-dependent eigenvectors in predicting phonon transport properties of anharmonic crystals using normal mode analysis methods
- He, J., & Liu, J. (2021), JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 6. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0053287
- Molecular dynamics simulation of thermal transport in semicrystalline polyethylene: Roles of strain and the crystalline-amorphous interphase region
- He, J., & Liu, J. (2021), Journal of Applied Physics. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0067999
- Parallel Frameworks for Robust Optimization of Medium-Frequency Transformers
- Booth, K., Subramanyan, H., Liu, J., & Lukic, S. M. (2021), IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, 9(4), 5097–5112. https://doi.org/10.1109/jestpe.2020.3042527
- Thermal boundary conductance across solid-solid interfaces at high temperatures: A microscopic approach
- Zhong, J., Xi, Q., Wang, Z., Nakayama, T., Li, X., Liu, J., & Zhou, J. (2021), JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 5. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0047396
- Thermal percolation and electrical insulation in composite materials with partially metallic coated fillers
- Zhong, J., Xi, Q., He, J., Liu, J., & Zhou, J. (2021), APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 11. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0067875
- A skin layer made of cured polysilazane and yttria stabilized zirconia for enhanced thermal protection of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs)
- Jia, Y., Ajayi, T. D., Ramakrishnan, K. R., Negi, A., Liu, J., Ekkad, S., & Xu, C. (2020), Surface and Coatings Technology, 404, 126481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2020.126481
- Efficiency improvement of liquid piston compressor using metal wire mesh for near-isothermal compressed air energy storage application
- , (2020). Journal of Energy Storage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2020.101226
- In-Plane Thermoelectric Properties of Flexible and Room-Temperature-Doped Carbon Nanotube Films
- , (2020). ACS Applied Energy Materials. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.0c00995
- Size Effects in the Thermal Conductivity of Amorphous Polymers
- , (2020). Physical Review Applied. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.044023
Grants
- Domain-Engineering Enabled Thermal Switching in Ferroelectric Materials
- National Science Foundation (NSF)(7/01/20 - 6/30/24)
- Travel Support for Student Participation at the 2019 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (ASME-IMECE) Society-wide Micro and Nano Technology Forum
- National Science Foundation (NSF)(11/01/19 - 6/30/20)
- CAREER: Pushing the Lower Limit of Thermal Conductivity in Layered Materials
- National Science Foundation (NSF)(3/01/20 - 2/28/25)
- Fundamental Studies on the Thermal Spin-Transfer-Torque: Towards the Next Generation Nonvolatile Memory for Space Exploration
- NCSU NC Space Grant Consortium(7/01/18 - 5/31/19)