Thermal conductivity of bulk nanostructured lead telluride

Thermal conductivity of lead telluride with embedded nanoinclusions was studied using Monte Carlo simulations with intrinsic phonon transport properties obtained from first-principles-based lattice dynamics. The nanoinclusion/matrix interfaces were set to completely reflect phonons to model the maximum interface-phonon-scattering scenario. The simulations with the geometrical cross section and volume fraction of the nanoinclusions matched to those of the experiment show that the experiment has already reached the theoretical limit of thermal conductivity. The frequency-dependent analysis further identifies that the thermal conductivity reduction is dominantly attributed to scattering of low frequency phonons and demonstrates mutual adaptability of nanostructuring and local disordering.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Science (Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center Grant DE-SC0001299/DE-FG02-09ER46577