• Thermal Innovations for Future

Recent News:

  • Prof. Feng and Dr. Tiwari received the 2025 R&D 100 Award.

  • Prof. Feng received the 2025 Assistant Professor of The Year Award.

  • Prof. Feng received the 2024 ASME Rising Star of Mechanical Engineering Award!

  • Hao Zhou won the best presentation award and the second place best poster award at the IMECE!

  • Prof. Feng received the 2024 Assistant Professor of The Year Award.

  • Jacob Crossley received a Best Presentation Award at the SHTC.

  • Janak Tiwari received the Graduate Student of The Year Award.

  • Prof. Feng received the 2024 NSF CAREER Award! See [University of Utah News]

  • Our recent paper [ Appl. Phys. Lett. 123, 192201 (2023)] was selected as a Featured Article by Applied Physics Letters! Congratulations, Hao!

  • Congratulations to Hao for winning the Best Presentation Award at the IMECE 2023 conference!

  • The senior students won the 2023 IEEE/EPS ASME K16 Student Heat Sink Design Challenge! Congratulations!

  • The 2023 University of Utah Department Newsletter highlights Dr. Feng's contributions. See [2023 Newsletter]

  • Prof. Feng received the 2023 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award!

  • Prof. Feng received the 2023 Brillouin Medal. [PDF].

Welcome To Thermal Innovations For Future (TIFT) Lab

Our Mission:

Our lab aims to uncover the fundamental physics governing thermal transport in materials under extreme conditions, resolve long-standing challenges in thermal science and engineering, and translate these insights into next-generation, high-performance technologies.

Research Thrusts:

My lab aims to tackle fundamental thermal-transport challenges across three major domains: extreme-temperature environments, semiconductor devices, and clean-energy systems. We aim to gain a fundamental understanding and push the boundary of thermal transport to extremes. To realize this target, we develop novel theories and simulation frameworks and combines them with materials syntheses, microstructures and thermal properties characterizations. Research areas include:

  • Ultrahigh-temperature materials and thermal transport: thermal barrier coatings, thermal protection, high-temperature energy harvesting, heat transfer in Earth mantle
  • Thermal management of semiconductors: heat and charge transport with impurities and defects, interfacial thermal transport, thermal interface materials, ultra-high thermal conductivity materials
  • Building energy efficiency: thermal insulation materials, building envelope air leakage detection, thermal energy storage, passive cooling, ultra-low thermal conductivity materials
  • Thermal transport with irradiation: thermal properties of materials after radiation
  • Thermal radiative properties: emissivity of materials, photon transport inside materials
  • Ionic transport: lithium-ion materials, quantum materials, 2D materials