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Phonon-engineered extreme thermal conductivity materials

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1188–1202 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Materials with ultrahigh or low thermal conductivity are desirable for many technological applications, such as thermal management of electronic and photonic devices, heat exchangers, energy converters and thermal insulation. Recent advances in simulation tools (first principles, the atomistic Green’s function and molecular dynamics) and experimental techniques (pump–probe techniques and microfabricated platforms) have led to new insights on phonon transport and scattering in materials and the discovery of new thermal materials, and are enabling the engineering of phonons towards desired thermal properties. We review recent discoveries of both inorganic and organic materials with ultrahigh and low thermal conductivity, highlighting heat-conduction physics, strategies used to change thermal conductivity, and future directions to achieve extreme thermal conductivities in solid-state materials.

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Fig. 1: Transport regimes for heat conduction and engineering of thermal conductivity.
Fig. 2: Discovery and band structure engineering of materials with ultrahigh thermal conductivity.

Figure adapted with permission from ref. 136, AAAS (a); ref. 137, Springer Nature Ltd (b); ref. 33, APS (c)

Fig. 3: Designing and engineering materials with ultralow thermal conductivity.

Figure reproduced with permission from ref. 55, Springer Nature Ltd (a, middle-left) and ref. 56, Springer Nature Ltd (a, middle-right)

Fig. 4: Phonon–interface interaction.

Figure reproduced with permission from ref. 26, Springer Nature Ltd (c) and ref. 27, AAAS (d,e)

Fig. 5: Heat conduction in organic materials.

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Acknowledgements

This Review is built on the work of the community and many former students, post-docs and collaborators that G.C. has worked with; and financial support from the Office of Naval Research under Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant N00014-16-1-2436 (for high thermal conductivity materials), and US Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences award no. DE-FG02-02ER45977 (polymers), MRSEC Program of the National Science Foundation under award number DMR-1419807 (oxides and thermal regulation), and NSF under award CBET 1851052 (thermal metrology).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Xin Qian, Jiawei Zhou.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Xin Qian, Jiawei Zhou & Gang Chen

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Qian, X., Zhou, J. & Chen, G. Phonon-engineered extreme thermal conductivity materials. Nat. Mater. 20, 1188–1202 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-00918-3

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