Mechanism of Thermal Conductivity Reduction From Suspended to Supported Graphene: A Quantitative Spectral Analysis of Phonon Scattering

Author(s):  
Bo Qiu ◽  
Xiulin Ruan

In this work, we perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations together with phonon spectral analysis to predict the thermal conductivity of both suspended and supported graphene. We quantitatively address the relative importance of different types of phonon in thermal transport and explain why thermal conductivity is significantly reduced in supported graphene compared to that in suspended graphene. Within the framework of equilibrium MD, we perform spectral energy density analysis to obtain the phonon mean free path of each individual phonon mode. The contribution of each mode to thermal conductivity is then calculated and summed to obtain the lattice thermal conductivity in the temperature range 300–650 K. Our predicted values and temperature dependence for both suspended and supported graphene agree with experimental data well. In contrast to prior studies, our results suggest that the contribution from out-of-plane acoustic (ZA) branch to thermal conductivity is around 25–30% in suspended graphene at room temperature. The thermal conductivity of supported graphene is predicted to be largely reduced, which is consistent with experimental observations. Such reduction is shown to be due to stronger scattering of all phonon modes rather than only the ZA mode in the presence of the substrate.

Author(s):  
A. J. H. McGaughey ◽  
J. A. Thomas ◽  
J. Turney ◽  
R. M. Iutzi

We investigate thermal transport in water/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite systems using molecular dynamics simulations. Carbon-carbon interactions are modeled using the second-generation REBO potential, water-water interactions are modeled using the TIP4P potential, and carbon-water interactions are modeled using a Lennard-Jones potential. The thermal conductivities of empty and water-filled CNTs with diameters between 0.83 nm and 1.66 nm are predicted using molecular dynamics simulation and a direct application of the Fourier law. For empty CNTs, the thermal conductivity decreases with increasing CNT diameter. As the CNT length approaches 1 micron, a length-independent thermal conductivity is obtained, indicative of diffusive phonon transport. When the CNTs are filled with water, the thermal conductivity decreases compared to the empty CNTs and transitions to diffusive phonon transport at shorter lengths. To understand this behavior, we calculate the spectral energy density of the empty and water-filled CNTs and calculate the mode-specific group velocities, relaxation times, and thermal conductivity. For the empty 1.10 nm diameter CNT, we show that the acoustic phonon modes account for 65 percent of the total thermal conductivity. This behavior is attributed to their long mean-free paths. When the CNT is filled with water, interactions with the water molecules shorten the acoustic mode mean-free path and lower the overall CNT thermal conductivity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Osei-Agyemang ◽  
Challen Enninful Adu ◽  
Ganesh Balasubramanian

AbstractAn emerging chalcogenide perovskite, CaZrSe3, holds promise for energy conversion applications given its notable optical and electrical properties. However, knowledge of its thermal properties is extremely important, e.g. for potential thermoelectric applications, and has not been previously reported in detail. In this work, we examine and explain the lattice thermal transport mechanisms in CaZrSe3 using density functional theory and Boltzmann transport calculations. We find the mean relaxation time to be extremely short corroborating an enhanced phonon–phonon scattering that annihilates phonon modes, and lowers thermal conductivity. In addition, strong anharmonicity in the perovskite crystal represented by the Grüneisen parameter predictions, and low phonon number density for the acoustic modes, results in the lattice thermal conductivity to be limited to 1.17 W m−1 K−1. The average phonon mean free path in the bulk CaZrSe3 sample (N → ∞) is 138.1 nm and nanostructuring CaZrSe3 sample to ~10 nm diminishes the thermal conductivity to 0.23 W m−1 K−1. We also find that p-type doping yields higher predictions of thermoelectric figure of merit than n-type doping, and values of ZT ~0.95–1 are found for hole concentrations in the range 1016–1017 cm−3 and temperature between 600 and 700 K.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1564
Author(s):  
Jin Hee Kim ◽  
Song Yi Back ◽  
Jae Hyun Yun ◽  
Ho Seong Lee ◽  
Jong-Soo Rhyee

We investigated the anisotropic thermoelectric properties of the Bi2Te2.85Se0.15Ix (x = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 mol.%) compounds, synthesized by ball-milling and hot-press sintering. The electrical conductivities of the Bi2Te2.85Se0.15Ix were significantly improved by the increase of carrier concentration. The dominant electronic scattering mechanism was changed from the mixed (T ≤ 400 K) and ionization scattering (T ≥ 420 K) for pristine compound (x = 0.0) to the acoustic phonon scattering by the iodine doping. The Hall mobility was also enhanced with the increasing carrier concentration. The enhancement of Hall mobility was caused by the increase of the mean free path of the carrier from 10.8 to 17.7 nm by iodine doping, which was attributed to the reduction of point defects without the meaningful change of bandgap energy. From the electron diffraction patterns, a lattice distortion was observed in the iodine doped compounds. The modulation vector due to lattice distortion increased with increasing iodine concentration, indicating the shorter range lattice distortion in real space for the higher iodine concentration. The bipolar thermal conductivity was suppressed, and the effective masses were increased by iodine doping. It suggests that the iodine doping minimizes the ionization scattering giving rise to the suppression of the bipolar diffusion effect, due to the prohibition of the BiTe1 antisite defect, and induces the lattice distortion which decreases lattice thermal conductivity, resulting in the enhancement of thermoelectric performance.


Author(s):  
Dhruv Singh ◽  
Jayathi Y. Murthy ◽  
Timothy S. Fisher

Using the linearized Boltzmann transport equation and perturbation theory, we analyze the reduction in the intrinsic thermal conductivity of few-layer graphene sheets accounting for all possible three-phonon scattering events. Even with weak coupling between layers, a significant reduction in the thermal conductivity of the out-of-plane acoustic modes is apparent. The main effect of this weak coupling is to open many new three-phonon scattering channels that are otherwise absent in graphene. The highly restrictive selection rule that leads to a high thermal conductivity of ZA phonons in single-layer graphene is only weakly broken with the addition of multiple layers, and ZA phonons still dominate thermal conductivity. We also find that the decrease in thermal conductivity is mainly caused by decreased contributions of the higher-order overtones of the fundamental out-of-plane acoustic mode. Moreover, the extent of reduction is largest when going from single to bilayer graphene and saturates for four layers. The results compare remarkably well over the entire temperature range with measurements of of graphene and graphite.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae-Yeol Hwang ◽  
Eun Sung Kim ◽  
Syed Waqar Hasan ◽  
Soon-Mok Choi ◽  
Kyu Hyoung Lee ◽  
...  

Highly dense pore structure was generated by simple sequential routes using NaCl and PVA as porogens in conventional PbTe thermoelectric materials, and the effect of pores on thermal transport properties was investigated. Compared with the pristine PbTe, the lattice thermal conductivity values of pore-generated PbTe polycrystalline bulks were significantly reduced due to the enhanced phonon scattering by mismatched phonon modes in the presence of pores (200 nm–2 μm) in the PbTe matrix. We obtained extremely low lattice thermal conductivity (~0.56 W m−1 K−1at 773 K) in pore-embedded PbTe bulk after sonication for the elimination of NaCl residue.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arpit Mittal ◽  
Sandip Mazumder

Abstract The Monte Carlo method has found prolific use in the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation for phonons for the prediction of nonequilibrium heat conduction in crystalline thin films. This paper contributes to the state-of-the-art by performing a systematic study of the role of the various phonon modes on thermal conductivity predictions, in particular, optical phonons. A procedure to calculate three-phonon scattering time-scales with the inclusion of optical phonons is described and implemented. The roles of various phonon modes are assessed. It is found that transverse acoustic (TA) phonons are the primary carriers of energy at low temperatures. At high temperatures (T>200 K), longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons carry more energy than TA phonons. When optical phonons are included, there is a significant change in the amount of energy carried by various phonons modes, especially at room temperature, where optical modes are found to carry about 25% of the energy at steady state in silicon thin films. Most importantly, it is found that inclusion of optical phonons results in better match with experimental observations for silicon thin-film thermal conductivity. The inclusion of optical phonons is found to decrease the thermal conductivity at intermediate temperatures (50–200 K) and to increase it at high temperature (>200 K), especially when the film is thin. The effect of number of stochastic samples, the dimensionality of the computational domain (two-dimensional versus three-dimensional), and the lateral (in-plane) dimension of the film on the statistical accuracy and computational efficiency is systematically studied and elucidated for all temperatures.


The thermal and electrical conductivities of silver and copper alloys with high electrical resistivities were studied in the temperature range from 0.3 to 4 °K. The lattice thermal conductivity results were interpreted in terms of Pippard’s semi-classical theory of the electron-phonon interaction and good qualitative agreement between this theory and the measurements was obtained for the temperature range from 1 to 4 °K. Below 1 °K the thermal conductivity of most samples decreased much more rapidly than one would have expected if the phonon mean free path were limited by the electron-phonon interaction only. Other phonon scattering mechanisms were therefore postulated and the effects of phonon scattering from dislocations was studied both theoretically and experimentally. The increase in thermal resistance below 1 °K of most alloys was more rapid than the increase obtained theoretically for phonon-dislocation and phonon-boundary scattering. The thermal conductivity of a copper sample with a resistance ratio of about 85 was found to be anomalous below 1 °K as well, suggesting that both the phonons and the conduction electrons could contribute to the effect in the alloys.


Author(s):  
Koji Miyazaki ◽  
Daisuke Nagai ◽  
Yohei Kido ◽  
Hiroshi Tsukamoto

We carried out molecular dynamics simulations (MD) of heat conduction in Si with a nano-hole to represent the nano-structure, in order to investigate the mechanism of the thermal conductivity reduction of nano-structured materials. The Stillinger-Weber potential is used in this study. The temperature is kept constant at 300K by velocity scaling. Periodic boundary conditions are applied in the x, y and z directions. Phonon dispersion curves are calculated by using the time-space 2D Fourier transform. The phonon group velocity is calculated from the slope of the dispersion curve. The velocity is reduced by nano-holes, even if those are random. Phonon mean free path can be evaluated from the width of dispersion curve, and the long waves are clearly scattered by nano-holes. Phonon density of states (DOS) is also calculated by the Fourier transform of a velocity correlation. The DOS of Si with periodic nano-holes are slightly smaller than that of a single crystal Si. In other words, the specific heat is reduced by periodic nano-holes due to the reduced phonon modes. We discuss the mechanism of the reduction of the thermal conductivity of nano-porous material on the atomic scale.


Author(s):  
Bo Qiu ◽  
Xiulin Ruan

In this work, thermal conductivity of perfect and nanoporous few-quintuple Bi2Te3 thin films as well as nanoribbons with perfect and zig-zag edges is investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with Green-Kubo method. We find minimum thermal conductivity of perfect Bi2Te3 thin films with three quintuple layers (QLs) at room temperature, and we believe it originates from the interplay between inter-quintuple coupling and phonon boundary scattering. Nanoporous films and nanoribbons are studied for additional phonon scattering channels in suppressing thermal conductivity. With 5% porosity in Bi2Te3 thin films, the thermal conductivity is found to decrease by a factor of 4–6, depending on temperature, comparing to perfect single QL. For nanoribbons, width and edge shape are found to strongly affect the temperature dependence as well as values of thermal conductivity.


Open Physics ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleg Pursky ◽  
Vyacheslav Konstantinov

AbstractThe isochoric thermal conductivity of an orientationally-disordered phase of CCl4 is analysed within a model in which heat is transferred by phonons and above the phonon mobility edge by ”diffusive” modes migrating randomly from site to site. The mobility edge ω0 is found from the condition that the phonon mean-free path cannot become smaller than half the phonon wavelength. The contributions of phonon-phonon, one-, and two-phonon scattering to the total thermal resistance of solid CCl4 are calcualted under the assumption that the different scattering mechanisms contribute additively. An increase in the isochoric thermal conductivity with temperature is explained by suppression of phonon scattering at rotational excitations due to a decrease in correlation in the rotation of neighbouring molecules.


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