About

Edgar Meyhofer is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, with a secondary appointment in Biomedical Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Zoology with a specialization in Biomechanics from the University of Washington, obtained in 1991. His research interests encompass nanotechnology, bionanotechnology, and cellular and molecular biomechanics. Meyhofer's work focuses on understanding heat transfer at the nanoscale, including radiative heat transfer, heat-to-electricity conversion, and the development of nanoscale thermal switches. He has contributed to advancing knowledge in nanoscale thermal transport, molecular heat transfer, and the manipulation of thermal properties at the atomic and molecular levels. His research has led to significant discoveries such as the first measurement of single-molecule heat transfer and the construction of nanoscale thermal switches, with implications for quantum computing, energy efficiency, and molecular electronics. Meyhofer has received numerous honors, including a teaching award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and recognition as a Fellow for his work on motor proteins in vitro.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Biophysics
• Biology
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Tuning Phonon Transmission via Single-Atom Substituents

  Figshare · 2026-04-03

  datasetOpen access

  Source data for figures

  PublisherDOI

• Tuning Phonon Transmission via Single-Atom Substituents

  Figshare · 2026-04-03 · 1 citations

  datasetOpen access

  Source data for figures

  PublisherDOI

• Tuning phonon transmission via single-atom substituents

  Nature Materials · 2026-04-02

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A cryogenic near-field thermal diode leveraging superconducting phase transitions

  Nature Nanotechnology · 2026-01-14 · 1 citations

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Direct Observation of a Persistent Thermal Current

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Thermal currents arise in the presence of temperature gradients, analogous to electrical currents driven by voltage differentials. Beyond such normal currents, persistent electrical currents flowing without a voltage differential arise in superconductors. However, persistent thermal currents in the absence of temperature differentials have never been experimentally detected. Here, we report a direct experimental detection of a persistent thermal current via calorimetric measurements performed using a custom-fabricated platform consisting of three magneto-optical Indium Gallium Arsenide discs positioned symmetrically in the near-field of each other. When reciprocity is broken by applying an orthogonal magnetic field, an asymmetric thermal conductance appears between the discs, providing an unambiguous signature of a persistent heat current. The direction of this current is reversed with the magnetic field orientation and the magnitude scales with the magnetic field, confirming its origin in broken reciprocity. This work uncovers a completely novel transport phenomenon that can enable the control of energy flow in non-reciprocal devices created from magneto-optical and topological materials and unlocks transformative energy storage and thermal management applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Direct Observation of a Persistent Thermal Current

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Thermal currents arise in the presence of temperature gradients, analogous to electrical currents driven by voltage differentials. Beyond such normal currents, persistent electrical currents flowing without a voltage differential arise in superconductors. However, persistent thermal currents in the absence of temperature differentials have never been experimentally detected. Here, we report a direct experimental detection of a persistent thermal current via calorimetric measurements performed using a custom-fabricated platform consisting of three magneto-optical Indium Gallium Arsenide discs positioned symmetrically in the near-field of each other. When reciprocity is broken by applying an orthogonal magnetic field, an asymmetric thermal conductance appears between the discs, providing an unambiguous signature of a persistent heat current. The direction of this current is reversed with the magnetic field orientation and the magnitude scales with the magnetic field, confirming its origin in broken reciprocity. This work uncovers a completely novel transport phenomenon that can enable the control of energy flow in non-reciprocal devices created from magneto-optical and topological materials and unlocks transformative energy storage and thermal management applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Attenuating Super-Planckian Radiative Heat Transfer in Nanoscale Structures

  Nano Letters · 2025-12-31

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Radiative heat transfer between nanoscale (i.e., subwavelength) structures, with dimensions smaller than the thermal wavelength, can significantly surpass the far-field blackbody limit (Thompson, D.; et al. Nature 2018). This enhanced thermal coupling, called super-Planckian radiative heat transfer, limits the performance of high-resolution calorimeters [often made of silicon nitride (SiN)] used in nanoscale thermal sensing. Here, via computational and experimental work, we show that super-Planckian coupling can be significantly attenuated by employing polymers. Our calculations show that Parylene-C (a polymer) exhibits a lower density of guided-modes and reduced absorption across the thermal spectrum, suppressing this coupling by up to 10-fold compared to SiN. Experiments performed with custom-fabricated Parylene-C and SiN devices confirm that the radiative coupling is indeed attenuated in Parylene-C. Our findings highlight how the super-Planckian coupling can be attenuated for improved performance in high-resolution calorimetry.

  PublisherDOI

• Anisotropic Thermal Conductivity in Imine-Linked Two-Dimensional Polymer Films Produced by Interfacial Polymerization

  ACS Nano · 2025-05-14 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Anisotropic thermal transport was measured in imine-linked two-dimensional polymer (2DP) films that were prepared by interfacial polymerization. Measurements of both in-plane (k∥) and cross-plane (k⊥) thermal conductivities relied on preparing free-standing 2DP films that were readily transferred for different measurement configurations. We polymerized two 2DP (Per-PDA and TAPPy-PDA) films at a liquid–liquid interface. These polycrystalline, imine-linked 2DP films are 100–200 nm in thickness and were measured by frequency domain thermoreflectance to extract k⊥ and a suspended calorimetric platform technique to evaluate k∥. We find that k∥ is larger than k⊥ in both materials at room temperature, leading to anisotropy ratios (k∥/k⊥) as high as 2.3. We attribute this behavior to the fact that the stiff, in-plane covalent bonds of 2DPs transport heat more effectively than the flexible, supramolecular cross-plane interactions. Variable–temperature measurements revealed a positive correlation between temperature and thermal conductivity, which we attribute to phonon scattering from grain boundaries and defects in the polycrystalline 2DP films. Molecular dynamics simulations of pristine crystals predict larger thermal conductivities and anisotropy ratios exceeding 7. The simulations suggest that as higher quality 2DP films become available, higher thermal conductivities and anisotropy ratios will also manifest.

  PublisherDOI

• Direct quantification of the metabolic heat output of individual <i>Drosophila</i> brains

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-08-12

  preprintOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract Quantitative insights into brain metabolism are essential for advancing our understanding of energy dynamics in the brain. However, current approaches for tracking brain metabolism, metabolic profiling and respirometry, provide only static snapshots of metabolite levels or lack the required resolution. Here, we develop a novel nanowatt-resolution biocalorimeter capable of real-time continuous measurements of heat output to quantitatively measure the metabolism of individual live Drosophila melanogaster brains and investigate how sex, genotype, age, and disease affect brain metabolism. We show for the first time that female brains, across multiple wild-type genotypes, exhibit a significantly higher metabolic rate (∼10%) than male brains at a young age (&lt;10 days old) and follow distinct metabolic trajectories across the lifespan. We also find that parkin mutants, a genetic model for Parkinson’s disease, exhibit a ∼15% reduction in brain metabolic output relative to controls, revealing that defective mitophagy due to parkin deficiency affects brain metabolism. Furthermore, we measure the metabolic rate of reproductive tissues of Drosophila , highlighting the broad applicability of our biocalorimeter. Together, these advances open new avenues for investigating how tissue-specific metabolism is impacted by aging, neurodegeneration, and disease states. Teaser Direct measurement of metabolic rate of individual Drosophila brains to investigate how sex, genotype, age, and disease affect brain metabolism.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Self-Heating Effects and Thermal Mitigation Strategies in Ferroelectric ScAlN/GaN HEMTs

  IEEE Electron Device Letters · 2025-09-26 · 3 citations

  article

  We investigate self-heating effects (SHE) and thermal mitigation strategies in ferroelectric ScAlN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs). Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)-grown devices demonstrate a large memory window (MW) of ~3.8 V, on/off current ratio (I<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">on</sub>/I<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">off</sub>) >10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">8</sup>, and sub-Boltzmann subthreshold swing (SS) ~20 mV/dec, enabled by ScAlN polarization control of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Under high drain bias, SHE degrades memory and subthreshold characteristics. The thermal origin of degradation is confirmed by external heating and transconductance analysis. Multi-frequency conductance measurements reveal charge trapping and detrapping, which may be accelerated by SHE. Heat sink integration effectively reduces temperature rise, as verified by scanning thermal microscopy. These results underscore the importance of thermal management for reliable ferroelectric HEMT operation in high-power and extreme-environment applications.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• SST: Microtubule-Based Immunosensors

  NSF · $415k · 2004–2007

• Study of Thermal Transport in Single Oligomer and Polymer Chains

  NSF · $330k · 2018–2022

• Probing the Effects of Highly Bent and Twisted DNA on Transcription by RNA Polymerase

  NSF · $431k · 2010–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Pramod Reddy

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  53 shared

• Troy A. Lionberger

  Emery Oleochemicals (Malaysia)

  19 shared

• Dakotah Thompson

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  18 shared

• Rohith Mittapally

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  17 shared

• Katsuo Kurabayashi

  New York University

  14 shared

• Kristen J. Verhey

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  14 shared

• Longji Cui

  Fuzhou University

  12 shared

• Dawen Cai

  11 shared

Labs

• Nanomechanics LaboratoryPI

Education

• Ph.D., Zoology

  University of Washington

  1991

Awards & honors

• Teaching Award, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Univer…
• Fellow, American Heart Association, 1992 - 1995
• Fellow, German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD, 1982 - 1983
• ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award of 2018