The thermal conductivity of tin and indium below 1°K

An experimental study has been made of some aspects of the thermal conductivity of superconducting tin and indium below 1°K. Experiments at the lowest temperatures, where the thermal conductivity of the lattice is dominant, and for tin varies as T 3 , have been mainly directed towards studying the size effect in the conductivity due to the scattering of phonons at the specimen surface. Electropolishing tin has been found to increase the thermal conductivity considerably; a simple analysis of the results shows that almost complete specular reflexion of phonons is attainable. The analysis confirms the existence of an internal scattering of phonons, describable at the lowest temperatures by a temperature-independent mean free path which does not vary when the diameter of the specimen is reduced, but is very sensitive to any damage suffered by the crystal. The lattice conductivity of indium, which is anomalous in having a T 4 rather than a T 3 variation, appears to be limited mainly by internal scattering and it is tentatively suggested that the internal scattering is mainly due to the reradiation from dislocations oscillating in the phonon field. At somewhat higher temperatures (above about 0.7 but below 1°K) the thermal conductivity is predominantly electronic and the results indicate that here too the ‘effective’ electronic mean free path is size-dependent due to boundary scattering. From an analysis of this size-dependence in tin, the ‘intrinsic’ electronic mean free path in the superconducting state is deduced and found to be between ten and thirty times as long as in the normal state. The results suggest also that the electronic velocity in the superconducting state is something like one-third of the Fermi velocity.

1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. E. Goodson ◽  
M. I. Flik

Electrons and phonons are the carriers of heat in the a-b plane of the high-Tc superconductor YBa2Cu3O7. In the absence of boundary scattering, the a-b plane thermal conductivity and the mean free path of each carrier type are calculated as functions of temperature using kinetic theory, the two-fluid model of the superconducting state, and experimental data for the thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity of a single crystal. The reduction by boundary scattering of the effective a-b plane thermal conductivity along an epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 film is predicted as a function of temperature and film thickness. The size effect on the phonon conductivity dominates over the size effect on the electron conductivity. The predicted electron mean free path is limited by scattering on defects and is in very good agreement with experimental data from infrared spectroscopy.


Author(s):  
Harutoshi Hagino ◽  
Koji Miyazaki

The size effect on thermal conduction due to phonon boundary scattering in films was studied as controlling heat conduction. Thermal rectifier was proposed as a new heat control concept by a ballistic rectifier relies on asymmetric scattering of phonons in asymmetric linear structure. We focus on the thermal rectification effect in membrane with asymmetric pores. We discussed on the thermal rectification effect from the calculation and thermal conductivity measurement of asymmetric structured membrane. Thermal conduction was calculated by using radiation calculation of ANSYS Fluent based on Boltzmann transport theory which is development of equation of phonon radiative transfer from view point of phonon mean free path and boundary scattering condition. In-plane thermal conductivities of free standing membranes with microsized asymmetric pores were measured by periodic laser heating measurement. From the result of calculation, phonons were transition to ballistic transport in the membranes with asymmetric shaped pores and thermal rectification effect was obtained on the condition of specular scattering because of the asymmetric back-scattering of ballistic phonons from asymmetric structure. The thermal rectification effect was increased with decreasing thickness of membrane shorter and shorter than mean free path of phonon. From the result of measurements, we were able to confirm the reduction of thermal conductivity based on ballistic phonon transport theory, but the strong thermal rectification effect was not confirmed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (23n24) ◽  
pp. 4026-4029 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. H. LIANG ◽  
BAOWEN LI

A model describing size-dependent melting temperature and thermal conductivity of nanosemiconductors is proposed based on Lindermann's melting criterion and Debye model. By the atomic thermal vibration consideration and by introducing intrinsic size effect of phonon velocity and mean free path combined with surface scattering effect, the model predicts that the melting temperature and thermal conductivity of nanosemiconductors decrease as the size reduces. The size effect depends on such material parameters as the vibration entropy, mean free path, the characteristic crystal size and surface roughness. The predictions are in agreement with experimental results of Si nanoparticles, nanowires and thin films.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1982
Author(s):  
Paul Desmarchelier ◽  
Alice Carré ◽  
Konstantinos Termentzidis ◽  
Anne Tanguy

In this article, the effect on the vibrational and thermal properties of gradually interconnected nanoinclusions embedded in an amorphous silicon matrix is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. The nanoinclusion arrangement ranges from an aligned sphere array to an interconnected mesh of nanowires. Wave-packet simulations scanning different polarizations and frequencies reveal that the interconnection of the nanoinclusions at constant volume fraction induces a strong increase of the mean free path of high frequency phonons, but does not affect the energy diffusivity. The mean free path and energy diffusivity are then used to estimate the thermal conductivity, showing an enhancement of the effective thermal conductivity due to the existence of crystalline structural interconnections. This enhancement is dominated by the ballistic transport of phonons. Equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations confirm the tendency, although less markedly. This leads to the observation that coherent energy propagation with a moderate increase of the thermal conductivity is possible. These findings could be useful for energy harvesting applications, thermal management or for mechanical information processing.


A series of experiments has been performed to study the steady flow of heat in liquid helium in tubes of diameter 0.05 to 1.0 cm at temperatures between 0.25 and 0.7 °K. The results are interpreted in terms of the flow of a gas of phonons, in which the mean free path λ varies with temperature, and may be either greater or less than the diameter of the tube d . When λ ≫ d the flow is limited by the scattering of the phonons at the walls, and the effect of the surface has been studied, but when λ ≪ d viscous flow is set up in which the measured thermal conductivity is increased above that for wall scattering. This behaviour is very similar to that observed in the flow of gases at low pressures, and by applying kinetic theory to the problem it can be shown that the mean free path of the phonons characterizing viscosity can be expressed by the empirical relation λ = 3.8 x 10 -3 T -4.3 cm. This result is inconsistent with the temperature dependence of λ as T -9 predicted theoretically by Landau & Khalatnikov (1949).


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 2453-2462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daewoo Suh ◽  
Sanghoon Lee ◽  
Chenchen Xu ◽  
Agha Aamir Jan ◽  
Seunghyun Baik

A percolation network of silver nanoflowers dramatically increased the thermal conductivity (42.4 W m−1 K−1) in soft polyurethane-matrix thermal interface materials.


1987 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Graebner ◽  
L. F. Schneemeyer ◽  
R. J. Cava ◽  
J. V. Waszczak ◽  
E. A. Rietman

ABSTRACTThe thermal conductivity k of micro-twinned single crystals of YBa2Cu3O7 and HoBa2Cu3O7 and a sintered sample of YBa2Cu3O7 has been measured for temperatures 0.03<T<5K. For the single crystals, k is small and varies as T1.8-1.9 This behavior resembles k for glassy insulators except for the lack of a plateau above IK. It is concluded that the thermal carriers are phonons with their mean free path limited by resonant scattering from tunneling entities, as in glasses. Suggestions for the location of tunneling systems are given. For the sinter, k is still smaller but does not follow a power law T-dependence. It is similar to other sintered ceramics with the same particle size, where the phonon mean free path is dominated by Rayleigh scattering from the particles. This strong scattering from the microstructure presumably masks the scattering from TS within each particle.


Author(s):  
Ravi Prasher

Thermal conductivity of packed bed of nanoparticles is calculated in this paper. Results show that effective thermal conductivity of nanoparticle bed can be very low. Thermal conductivity of the nanoparticle bed can be smaller than the thermal conductivity of air. Thermal conductivity depends on pressure, surface energy of the nanoparticle, and phonon mean free path.


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