Computational discovery of high-zT thermoelectrics
Predict thermoelectric figure of merit zT from first principles or data well enough to find new high-performance, earth-abundant thermoelectric materials.
Each problem states how progress is verified and what counts as a contribution. Besides the problems curated here, the catalogue includes open conjectures from Formal Conjectures (with Lean statements), optimization constants and the AlphaEvolve problems. Know one that belongs here? Propose a problem.
5 shown
Predict thermoelectric figure of merit zT from first principles or data well enough to find new high-performance, earth-abundant thermoelectric materials.
Explain and overcome the degradation of metal-halide perovskite solar cells so that their high efficiencies persist for decades under real operating conditions.
Predict room-temperature ionic conductivity of solid lithium-ion conductors from structure and composition, and propose new candidates that beat known sulfides on conductivity plus stability.
Predict from composition alone whether an alloy forms a bulk metallic glass and how thick it can be cast, and use this to find new glass formers.
Identify rare-earth-free compounds with enough magnetization, magnetocrystalline anisotropy and Curie temperature to fill the performance gap between ferrites and Nd-Fe-B magnets.