Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme
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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik
MM 10: SYCE: Caloric effects in ferroic materials
MM 10.2: Invited Talk
Monday, March 7, 2016, 15:30–16:00, H1
Multicaloric effect in biological systems: a case of nerve action — •Matjaz Valant1, Lawrence J. Dunne2, Anna-Karin Axelsson2, Florian Le Goupil3, and George Manos4 — 1University of Nova Gorica — 2London South Bank University, UK — 3Imperial College London, UK — 4University College London, UK
In the recent decades the "caloric community" has demonstrated the technological value of different types of reversible caloric effects induced by pulsing external fields that trigger changes in materials* order parameters. The applied research continues towards first prototypes of refrigeration systems. In addition, we have gained much better understanding of the microscopic processes related to the caloric effects, which enabled us also to recognize their occurrence and role in biological systems. We will discuss a model of nerve action, which is a natural continuation of the soliton model that considers a solitonic type pressure/density pulse propagating along the long axis of the nerve. A special emphasis has been placed on a reversible caloric response during the nerve action, which can be described as a multicaloric effect. We have calculated changes in membrane temperature, thickness, entropy and trans-membrane voltage. All of these calculated parameters are in striking agreement with experimental results. The temperature change is explained with the solitonic propagation that is iso-entropic. This observation is an important biological manifestation of the multicaloric effect, which has hitherto not being described in these terms.