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Theoretical Thermal Conductivity of Periodic Two-Dimensional Nanocomposites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Ronggui Yang
Affiliation:
Mechanical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
Gang Chen
Affiliation:
Mechanical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
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Abstract

A phonon Boltzmann transport model is established to study the lattice thermal conductivity of nanocomposites with nanowires embedded in a host semiconductor material. Special attention has been paid to cell-cell interaction using periodic boundary conditions. The simulation shows that the temperature profiles in nanocomposites are very different from those in conventional composites, due to ballistic phonon transport at nanoscale. The thermal conductivity of periodic 2-D nanocomposites is a strong function of the size of the embedded wires and the volumetric fraction of the constituent materials. At constant volumetric fraction the smaller the wire diameter, the smaller is the thermal conductivity of periodic two-dimensional nanocomposites. For fixed silicon wire dimension, the lower the atomic percentage of germanium, the lower the thermal conductivity of the nanocomposites. The results of this study can be used to direct the development of high efficiency thermoelectric materials.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2004

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References

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