Molecular dynamics study in microscale thermophysical engineering: Current activities and future in japan

Molecular dynamics (MD) studies have been playing a major role in this fast expanding research field of microscale thermophysical engineering in Japan. MD simulation is very effective for setting up a simplified ideal situation to examine the fundamental mechanism of thermal phenomena. On the other hand, when researchers try to solve complex problems at the stage of practical application, they face difficulties that are coming from the scale gap between the phenomena and the molecular system that can be treated by MD. In the present article, efforts that are being made to overcome these difficulties are discussed along with an overview of current hot topics in Japanese MD research.