Strong acoustic phonon suppression leads to ultralow thermal conductivity and enhanced thermoelectric performance in BaCuGdTe${}_3$

Jyoti Duhan, Chris Wolverton, Koushik Pal

Excitations and scatterings among the quantized lattice vibrations, i.e., phonons, govern the lattice thermal conductivity ($\hat{I}{º}_l$) in crystalline solids. Therefore, effective modu…