Ph.D. candidates Byeonggeol Lee and Dongju Jang from the Advanced Flexible Electronics Laboratory (AXEL), led by Professor Yongtaek Hong, received the KIDS Award (Silver) at the 26th International Meeting on Information Display (IMID 2026), an international conference organized by the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS).

IMID is a leading international conference in the display field, co-organized by KIDS and the Society for Information Display (SID). This year, the conference was held at BEXCO in Busan from August 18 to 21.

The research team delivered an oral presentation in the “Free Form Factor Displays: Backplane” session under the title “A Thermally Conductive Hydrogel Heatsink for Sustained Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting from Everyday Heat Sources under Ambient Air Condition.” The study applied thermoelectric energy harvesting technology, which converts thermal energy into electrical energy, to various everyday waste-heat sources. In particular, the team demonstrated a self-powered system that generates electrical energy from heat emitted by laptops and body heat, driving wireless communication devices and LEDs without an external power source.

The KIDS Awards, sponsored by both LG Display and Samsung Display, recognize innovation and excellence in display research. Two papers are selected in each of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories. The research team received the Silver Award.

This research is significant in that it addressed the heat dissipation problem that limited the performance of thermoelectric energy harvesting in the real ambient-air condition, presenting a novel method for effectively recycling various forms of waste heat generated in everyday life. It is expected to be used as a standalone energy source for various low-power electric devices, including wearables and self-powered sensor systems.

Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58052

Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr