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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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Conducting a thermal conductivity survey

A physically transparent approximate theory of phonon decay rates is presented starting from a pair potential model of the interatomic forces in an insulator or semiconductor. The theory applies in the classical regime and relates the 3-phonon decay rate to the third derivative of the pair potential. Phonon dispersion relations do not need to be calculated, as sum rules relate all the needed quantities directly to the pair potential. The Brillouin zone averaged phonon lifetime turns out to involve a dimensionless measure of the anharmonicity multiplied by an effective density of states for 3-phonon decay. Results are given for rare gas and alkali halide crystals. For rare gases, the results are in good agreement with more elaborate perturbation calculations. Comparison to experimental data on phonon linewidths and thermal conductivity are made.

Allen, P. B.↗

Prediction of structures and magnetic orientations in solid alpha and beta-O2

A quasi-harmonic-lattice-dynamics method coupled with a pattern-recognition optimization scheme is used to determine the minimum energy structures and magnetic orientations of solid oxygen. It is shown that the magnetic interaction is responsible for the stability of alpha-O2 with respect to beta-O2 at zero temperature and pressure. The calculated alpha-O2 lattice parameters, magnetic orientations, and sublimation energy are in good agreement with experiment. Phonon dispersion curves are calculated at vector k not equal to zero and the acoustic sound velocities are determined. The rms translational and orientational fluctuations from equilibrium are also calculated. The beta-O2 phase is described by constraining the magnetic moments so that the magnetic Hamiltonian preserves the hexagonal symmetry of the crystal. The calculated lattice parameters are in good agreement with the experiments, and a three-sublattice, quasi-helical magnetic orientation is predicted from structural and energetic considerations.

Etters, R. D.↗

Reduced thermal conductivity due to scattering centers in p-type SiGe alloys

Spark erosion was used to produce ultra-fine particles of SiGe thermoelectric material and boron nitride, an inert phonon-scattering material. A homogeneous powder was made by mixing the two powders. The mixture was hot pressed to produce a thermoelectric material with uniformity dispersed, ultra-fine, inert, phonon-scattering centers. It is shown that, in samples with inert boron nitride or silicon nitride, thermal conductivity of a SiGe alloy can be reduced by about 25 percent while maintaining the electrical properties of the samples. Annealing of all the samples at 1525 K caused grain growth to over a micron, eliminating the detrimental effect attributable to small grains. Only in the sample with boron nitride the thermal conductivity did remain well below that for standard p-type SiGe (about 25 percent), while the electrical resistivity and Seebeck coefficient were very close to the values for standard p-type 80/20 SiGe.

Beaty, John S.↗

One-phonon transitions observed in the scattering of He atoms from a LiF/001/ surface.

For the scattering of a nearly monoenergetic beam of thermal-energy He atoms from a cleaved (001)LiF crystal surface, speed distributions of the reflected atoms are measured at suitably spaced scattering angles within the plane of incidence. From the measurements, elastic and one-phonon inelastic scattering processes are identified. Elastically scattered atoms distribute themselves in a set of sharp diffraction peaks. One-phonon inelastically scattered atoms are dispersed about each diffraction peak. The most probable velocities of the inelastically scattered atoms exhibit a characteristic sawtooth variation with scattering angle which, to first approximation, corresponds to conservation of the component of atom momentum tangent to the surface.-

Fisher, S. S.↗

Globally Optimal Band Structure for Thermoelectrics in Realistic Systems

One of the ultimate questions in the field of thermoelectrics is the optimal band structure for the figure of merit. The observation made here is that a linear band dispersion, of any dimension, under acoustic-phonon-deformation-potential scattering comprises the theoretical regimen for delivering boxcar transport distribution, which has been mathematically proven to deliver optimum figure of merit. This is guaranteed by the interplay of the energy-dependencies of groupvelocity and density of states of linear dispersion as well as the energy-behavior of deformation-potential scattering. Then linear dispersion, capped with optimum bandwidth and combined with provisions of Park et al, npj Comput. Mater. 7, 43 2021, is the globally optimal band structure for thermoelectricity.

Junsoo Park↗

Wide-Stopband Aperiodic Phononic Filters

We demonstrate that a phonon stopband can be synthesized from an aperiodic structure comprising a discrete set of phononic filter stages. Each element of the set has a dispersion relation that defines a complete bandgap when calculated under a Bloch boundary condition. Hence, the effective stopband width in an aperiodic phononic filter (PnF) may readily exceed that of a phononic crystal with a single lattice constant or a coherence scale. With simulations of multi-moded phononic waveguides, we discuss the effects of finite geometry and mode-converting junctions on the phonon transmission in PnFs. The principles described may be utilized to form a wide stopband in acoustic and surface wave media. Relative to the quantum of thermal conductance for a uniform mesoscopic beam, a PnF with a stopband covering 1.6-10.4 GHz is estimated to reduce the thermal conductance by an order of magnitude at 75 mK.

bandgap↗

The Dispersion Relation for the 1/sinh(exp 2) Potential in the Classical Limit

The dispersion relation for the inverse hyperbolic potential is calculated in the classical limit. This is shown for both the low amplitude phonon branch and the high amplitude soliton branch. It is shown these results qualitatively follow that previously found for the inverse squared potential where explicit analytic solutions are known.

Campbell, Joel↗

Raman scattering from phonons and magnons in magnetic semiconductors, MnTe

Comparisons are made between theoretical and experimental data on laser Raman scattering by phonons and two-magnons in antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases of MnTe. The study was performed specifically to characterize the magnetic exchange coupling constants of the Mn ions in the samples. Crystal MnTe samples were bombarded with an Ar ion laser beam to obtain spectrometer and photon counter data. One E(2g) phonon with a room temperature energy of 178/cm and a two-magnon peak of 360/cm were observed in the Raman spectrum. A spin wave dispersion relation is presented for the spectrum. Finally, a Monte Carlo technique was used to calculate the two-magnon joint density of states that best fits the experimental data.

Mobasser, S. R.↗

Charge transfer polarisation wave and carrier pairing in the high T(sub c) copper oxides

The High T(sub c) oxides are highly polarizable materials and are charge transfer insulators. The charge transfer polarization wave formalism is developed in these oxides. The dispersion relationships due to long range dipole-dipole interaction of a charge transfer dipole lattice are obtained in 3-D and 2-D. These are high frequency bosons and their coupling with carriers is weak and antiadiabatic in nature. As a result, the mass renormalization of the carriers is negligible in complete contrast to conventional electron-phonon interaction, that give polarons and bipolarons. Both bound and superconducting pairing is discussed for a model Hamiltonian valid in the antiadiabatic regime, both in 3-D and 2-D. The stability of the charge transfer dipole lattice has interesting consequences that are discussed.

Chakraverty, B. K.↗

Experimental investigation of transient stimulated Raman scattering in a linearly dispersionless medium.

The results of numerical calculations of the transient stimulated Raman scattering reported previously have been verified experimentally under conditions where both linear dispersion and self-focusing effects were negligible. The existence of a delay between maxima of the laser and Stokes pulses is experimentally demonstrated for the first time, while the pulse shortening in time via Raman scattering is established more firmly than in previous work. The incident-laser-pulse duration, generated-Stokes-pulse duration, and delay between intensity maxima for the laser and Stokes pulses were measured with the two-photon absorption-fluorescence technique. The effective phonon-dephasing time is determined via spontaneous Raman scattering. By using these measured quantities, inferences are made as to the magnitude of the transient gain and the shape of the exciting picosecond laser pulse.

Carman, R. L.↗

Chain Dynamics in a Dilute Magnetorheological Fluid

The structure, formation, and dynamics of dilute, mono-dispersive ferrofluid emulsions in an external magnetic field have been investigated using dynamic light scattering techniques. In the absence of the magnetic field, the emulsion particles are randomly distributed and behave like hard spheres in Brownian motion. An applied magnetic field induces a magnetic dipole moment in each particle. Dipolar interactions between particles align them into chains where correlation functions show two decay processes. The short-time decay shows the motion of straight chains as a whole where the apparent chain length increases with the applied magnetic field and the particle volume fraction. Good scaling results are obtained showing that the apparent chain length grows with time following a power law with exponent of 0.6 and depends on the applied field, particle volume fraction, and diffusion constant of the particles. The long-time decay in the correlation function shows oscillation when the chains reach a certain length with time and stiffness with threshold field This result shows that chains not only fluctuate, but move in a periodic motion with a frequency of 364 Hz at lambda = 15. It may suggest the existence of phonons. This work is the first step in the understanding of the structure formation, especially chain coarsening mechanism, of magnetorheological (MR) fluids at higher volume fractions.

Liu, Jing↗