Influence of mass contrast in alloy phonon scattering

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of mass contrast on alloy phonon scattering in mass-substituted Lennard-Jones crystals. By calculating the mass-difference phonon scattering rate using a modal analysis method based on molecular dynamics, we have identified the applicability and limits of the widely-used mass-difference perturbation model in terms of magnitude and sign of the mass difference. The result of a phonon -mode-dependent analysis reveals that the critical phonon frequency, above which the mass-difference perturbation theory fails, decreases with the magnitude of the mass difference independently of its sign. This gives rise to a critical mass contrast, above which the mass-difference perturbation model noticeably underestimates the lattice thermal conductivity.

References in corpus (2)

• Microscopic mechanism of low thermal conductivity in lead-telluride
• The Ioffe-Regel criterion and diffusion of vibrations in random lattices

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Analytical Models of Phonon-Point Defect Scattering
• Coupling between Phonon-Phonon and Phonon-Impurity Scattering: A Critical Revisit of the Spectral Matthiessen's Rule
• Strain-induced electronic phase transition and strong enhancement of thermopower of TiS2
• Inverse Design of Ultralow Lattice Thermal Conductivity Materials Via Lone Pair Cation Coordination Environment