What is it about?

This article shows that heat propagation in nanowires can be described by Lévy walk statistics where heat carriers alternately jump to cover long distances and stall. The authors demonstrate that the ratio of the nanowire surface roughness to the heat carrier wavelength controls the length of the jump and induces different thermal transport regimes. A new superdiffusive regime characterized by oscillations in the mean free path distribution is discovered.

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Why is it important?

Our findings provide rules to engineer nanowires with targeted heat transport regimes. Our detailed analysis of the boundary scattering processes also provides important insights into how nanoscale surface roughness changes the way phonons propagate in materials.

Perspectives

Though nanowires are among the most simple objects, heat transport phenomena inside them are quite complex and have yet to be fully explored.

Dr. Aymeric Ramiere
Shenzhen University

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This page is a summary of: Lévy walk of quasiballistic phonons in nanowires, June 2022, American Physical Society (APS),
DOI: 10.1103/physreve.105.064123.
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