Nature of microscopic heat carriers in nanoporous silicon

We performed a systematic analysis of the vibrational modes in nanoporous silicon for different values of porosity, separating them into extended modes (diffusons and propagons) and localized vibrations (locons). By calculating the density of states, the participation ratio, and the systems' dispersion curves, the spatial character of each mode as well as the effect of porosity on the thermal conductivity have been investigated. An increase of porosity is shown to promote the existence of increasingly localized modes on one side, and the progressive transformation of propagons to diffusons on the other. Finally, we provide evidence of the sizable contribution of locons to thermal transport found in large porosity samples and discuss the mechanism of energy transfer in terms of mode-mode autocorrelations and cross-correlations

Indications of Phonon Hydrodynamics in Telescopic Silicon Nanowires

The validity of Fourier’s law in telescopic nanowires is tested by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We observe that the radial dependence of the heat-flux profile, the temperature jump, and the appearance of vorticity obtained in molecular dynamics telescopic wires near the contact point acquire a hydrodynamic character, and we show that they are incompatible with Fourier’s law. We propose the Guyer-Krumhansl equation as a generalization capable of capturing these hydrodynamic effects. Lattice-dynamics results show that the thermal average of the confined modes shows no radial dependence of the vibrating energy inside the wire. This means that hydrodynamic effects could not be related to the confinement effects in these small systems

Simulations of Resonant Intraband and Interband Tunneling Spin Filters

This viewgraph presentation reviews resonant intraband and interband tunneling spin filters It explores the possibility of building a zero-magnetic-field spin polarizer using nonmagnetic III-V semiconductor heterostructures. It reviews the extensive simulations of quantum transport in asymmetric InAs/GaSb/AlSb resonant tunneling structures with Rashba spin splitting and proposes a. new device concept: side-gated asymmetric Resonant Interband Tunneling Diode (a-RITD)