David G. Cahill

Professor Cahill received his BS in engineering physics from Ohio State University (summa cum laude) and his PhD in physics from Cornell University in 1989. His PhD work concerned lattice vibrations of disordered solids. Before joining the faculty at UIUC, he worked at IBM Watson Research Center where he conducted research on metal-semiconductor interfaces. His current research program focuses on developing a microscopic understanding of thermal transport at the nanoscale; the development of new methods of materials processing and analysis using ultrafast optical techniques; and advancing fundamental understanding of interfaces between materials and water.

David Cahill is the 1998 winner of the Peter Mark Memorial Award, the outstanding young investigator award of the AVS. Cahill was named a University Scholar by the University of Illinois in 2001, and a Willett Professor of Engineering by the College of Engineering in 2005. He is a fellow of the American Vacuum Society, the American Physical Society, and the Materials Research Society. He is on the editorial boards of Applied Physics Letters and Journal of Applied Physics.

Thermal management is a critical issue in a wide variety of applications of thin films materials from state-of-the-art microprocessors to turbine engines. Heat can be carried by any excitation of the solid that is thermally excited: lattice vibrations, electrons, spin-waves. The lifetime or coherence of these excitations have a complex dependence the microstructure of materials; at nanometer length scales, the transfer of heat between various excitations at interfaces becomes the controlling factor. Our group studies the basic science of thermal transport in materials with a particular emphasis on the exchange of thermal energy at solid-solid and solid-liquid interfaces. We have recently developed new and powerful methods of characterizing nanoscale thermal transport using ultrafast laser metrology of precisely controlled thin film multilayers and suspensions of metallic nanoparticles.  We are currently working to extend our experimental methods to higher resolution in time, space, and energy.

Catalin Chiritescu, David G. Cahill, Ngoc Nguyen, David Johnson, Arun Bodapati, Pawel Keblinski, and Paul Zschack, "Ultra-low thermal conductivity in disordered, layered crystals," Science 315 (2007).

Zhaohui Wang, Jeffrey A. Carter, Alexei Lagutchev, Yee Kan Koh, Nak-Hyun Seong, David G. Cahill, Dana D. Dlott, "Ultrafast flash thermal conductance of molecular chains," Science 317, 787(2007).

Ann I. Persson, Yee Kan Koh, David G. Cahill, Lars Samuelson, and Heiner Linke, "Thermal conductance of InAs nanowire composites," Nano Lett.  9, 4484-4488 (2009).

Xuan Zheng, David G. Cahill, and Ji-Cheng Zhao, "Effect of MeV ion irradiation on the coefficient of thermal expansion of Fe-Ni Invar alloys: a combinatorial study," Acta Mater.  58, 1236-1241 (2010).

Mark D. Losego, Lionel Moh, Kevin A. Arpin, David G. Cahill, Paul V Braun, "Interfacial thermal conductance in spun-cast polymer films and polymer brushes," Appl. Phys. Lett.  97, 011908 (2010).

Yee Kan Koh, Myung-Ho Bae, David G. Cahill, and Eric Pop, "Heat conduction across monolayer and few-layer graphenes," Nano Lett.  10, 4363-4368 (2010).

Bin Chen, Wen-Pin Hsieh, David G. Cahill, Dallas R. Trinkle, Jie Li, "Thermal conductivity of compressed H2O to 22 GPa: A test of the Leibfried-Schlömann equation," Phys. Rev. B 83, 13201 (2011).

Dong-Wook Oh, Jayakanth Ravichandran, Chen-Wei Liang, Wolter Siemons, Bharat Jalan,Charles M. Brooks, Mark Huijben, Darrell G. Schlom, Susanne Stemmer, Lane W. Martin, Arun Majumdar, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, and David G. Cahill, "Thermal conductivity as a metric for the crystalline quality of SrTiO3 epitaxial layers," Appl. Phys. Lett.  98, 221904 (2011).

Dong-Wook Oh, Seok Kim, John A. Rogers, David G. Cahill, and Sanjiv Sinha, "Interfacial thermal conductance of transfer-printed metal films," Advanced Materials 23, 5028-5033 (2011).

Wen-Pin Hsieh, Austin S. Lyons, Eric Pop, Pawel Keblinski, and David G. Cahill, "Pressure tuning of the thermal conductance of weak interfaces," Phys. Rev. B 84, 184107 (2011).

• Keynote lecture, 17th Japan Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, Tsukuba, Japan (1996)
• Peter Mark Memorial Award, AVS (1998)
• Fellow, American Vacuum Society (1998)
• Plenary lecture, 15th European Conference on Thermophysical Properties, Würzburg, Germany (1999)
• Xerox Award for Faculty Research (2000)
• University Scholar, UIUC (2000)
• Vice Chair, Chair, Program Chair, Nanometer-scale Science and Technology Division of the American Vacuum Society (2000-2003)
• Willett Faculty Scholar Award (2002)
• Chair of Gordon Research Conference, "Thin Film and Crystal Growth Mechanisms" (2003)
• Plenary lecture, 26th Japan Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, Tsukuba, Japan (2005)
• Fellow, American Physics Society (2005)
• Donald B. Willett Professor of Engineering, UIUC (2005-)
• Fellow, Materials Research Society (2012)