Enhanced Far-Field Thermal Radiation through a Polaritonic Waveguide.

We experimentally demonstrate the enhancement of the far-field thermal radiation between two nonabsorbent Si microplates coated with energy-absorbent silicon dioxide (SiO_{2}) nanolayers supporting the propagation of surface phonon polaritons. By measuring the radiative thermal conductance between two coated Si plates, we find that its values are twice those obtained without the SiO_{2} coating. This twofold increase results from the hybridization of polaritons with guided modes inside Si and is well predicted by fluctuational electrodynamics and an analytical model based on a two-dimensional density of polariton states. These findings could be applied to thermal management in microelectronics, silicon photonics, energy conversion, atmospheric sciences, and astrophysics.

Phonon and heat transport control using pillar-based phononic crystals.

Phononic crystals have been studied for the past decades as a tool to control the propagation of acoustic and mechanical waves. Recently, researchers proposed that nanosized phononic crystals can also control heat conduction and improve the thermoelectric efficiency of silicon by phonon dispersion engineering. In this review, we focus on recent theoretical and experimental advances in phonon and thermal transport engineering using pillar-based phononic crystals. First, we explain the principles of the phonon dispersion engineering and summarize early proof-of-concept experiments. Next, we review recent simulations of thermal transport in pillar-based phononic crystals and seek to uncover the origin of the observed reduction in the thermal conductivity. Finally, we discuss first experimental attempts to observe the predicted thermal conductivity reduction and suggest the directions for future research.

Optical polarization properties of InAs/InP quantum dot and quantum rod nanowires.

The emission polarization of single InAs/InP quantum dot (QD) and quantum rod (QR) nanowires is investigated at room temperature. Whereas the emission of the QRs is mainly polarized parallel to the nanowire axis, the opposite behavior is observed for the QDs. These optical properties can be explained by a combination of dielectric effects related to the nanowire geometry and to the configuration of the valence band in the nanostructure. A theoretical model and finite difference in time domain calculations are presented to describe the impact of the nanowire and the surroundings on the optical properties of the emitter. Using this model, the intrinsic degree of linear polarization of the two types of emitters is extracted. The strong polarization anisotropies indicate a valence band mixing in the QRs but not in the QDs.

Tailoring Phonon Dispersion of a Genetically Designed Nanophononic Metasurface.

Phonon engineering at the nanoscale holds immense promise for a myriad of applications. However, the design of phononic devices continues to rely on regular shapes chosen according to long-established simple rules. Here, we demonstrate an inverse design approach to create a two-dimensional phononic metasurface exhibiting a highly anisotropic phonon dispersion along the main axes of the Brillouin zone. A partial hypersonic bandgap of approximately 3.5 GHz is present along one axis, with gap closure along the orthogonal axis. Such a level of control is achieved through genetically optimized unit cells, with shapes exceeding conventional intuition. We experimentally validated our theoretical predictions using Brillouin light scattering, confirming the effectiveness of the inverse design method. Our approach unlocks the potential for automated engineering of phononic metasurfaces with on-demand functionalities, thus leading toward innovative phononic devices beyond the limitations of traditional design paradigms.

Anisotropy Reversal of Thermal Conductivity in Silicon Nanowire Networks Driven by Quasi-Ballistic Phonon Transport.

Nanostructured semiconductors promise functional thermal management for microelectronics and thermoelectrics through a rich design capability. However, experimental studies on anisotropic in-plane thermal conduction remain limited, despite the demand for directional heat dissipation. Here, inspired by an oriental wave pattern, a periodic network of bent wires, we investigate anisotropic in-plane thermal conduction in nanoscale silicon phononic crystals with the thermally dead volume. We observed the anisotropy reversal of the material thermal conductivity from 1.2 at 300 K to 0.8 at 4 K, with the reversal temperature of 80 K mediated by the transition from a diffusive to a quasi-ballistic regime. Our Monte Carlo simulations revealed that the backflow of the directional phonons induces the anisotropy reversal, showing that the quasi-ballistic phonon transport introduces preferential thermal conduction channels with anomalous temperature dependence. Accordingly, the anisotropy of the effective thermal conductivity varied from 2.7 to 5.0 in the range of 4-300 K, indicating an anisotropic heat manipulation capability. Our findings demonstrate that the design of nanowire networks enables the directional thermal management of electronic devices.

Impact of nanopillars on phonon dispersion and thermal conductivity of silicon membranes.

The performance of silicon-based thermoelectric energy generators is limited by the high thermal conductivity of silicon. Theoretical works have long proposed reducing the thermal conductivity by resonant phonon modes in nanopillars placed on the surface of silicon films. However, these predictions have never been confirmed due to the difficulty in the nanofabrication and measurements of such nanoscale systems. In this work, we report on the fabrication and measurements of silicon films with nanopillars as small as 12 nm in diameter. Our Brillouin light scattering spectroscopy experiments revealed that nanopillars indeed host resonant phonon modes. Yet, our thermal measurements using the micro time-domain thermoreflectance technique showed only a statistically insignificant difference between the thermal properties of silicon membranes with and without nanopillars. Results of this work contrast with the predictions of a substantial reduction in the thermal conductivity due to nanopillars and suggest refining the simulations to account for realistic experimental conditions.

Coherent and Incoherent Impacts of Nanopillars on the Thermal Conductivity in Silicon Nanomembranes.

Nanostructuring is the dominant approach for effective thermal conduction control in nanomaterials. In the past decade, researchers have been interested in thermal conduction control by the coherent effects in phononic crystal (PnC) systems. Recent theoretical works predicted that nanopillars on the surface of silicon membranes could cause a dramatic thermal conductivity reduction due to the phonon local resonances. However, this remarkable prediction has not been experimentally verified yet with the deep-nanoscale pillar-based PnCs. Here, we fabricate nanopillars on suspended silicon membranes using damageless neutral-beam etching and investigate the impact of nanopillars on the thermal conductivity of the membranes in the 4-300 K range. We found that thermal conductivity reduction caused by the nanopillars does not exceed 16%, which is much weaker than that predicted by the theoretical works. Moreover, this reduction remains temperature independent. These facts make the coherence an unlikely reason for the observed reduction. Indeed, our Monte Carlo simulations can reproduce the experimental results under a purely incoherent approximation. Our study shows that the coherent control of heat conduction by PnC nanostructures is more challenging to observe experimentally in reality than predicted in near-ideal modeling.

High Surface Phonon-Polariton in-Plane Thermal Conductance along Coupled Films.

Surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) are evanescent electromagnetic waves that can propagate distances orders of magnitude longer than the typical mean free paths of phonons and electrons. Therefore, they are expected to be powerful heat carriers capable of significantly enhancing the in-plane thermal conductance of polar nanostructures. In this work, we show that a SiO 2 /Si (10 µ m thick)/SiO 2 layered structure efficiently enhances the SPhP heat transport, such that its in-plane thermal conductance is ten times higher than the corresponding one of a single SiO 2 film, due to the coupling of SPhPs propagating along both of its polar SiO 2 nanolayers. The obtained results thus show that the proposed three-layer structure can outperform the in-plane thermal performance of a single suspended film while improving significantly its mechanical stability.

Coherent Thermal Conduction in Silicon Nanowires with Periodic Wings.

Artificial periodic nanostructures, known as phononic crystals, promise to control the thermal properties of nanostructures in the coherent regime, which can be achieved in semiconductors at low temperatures. Here, we study coherent thermal conduction in silicon nanowires with added periodic wings at sub-Kelvin temperature. Our simulations show that the added periodic wings flatten the phonon dispersion and thus reduce the thermal conductance. We investigate the dependence of this reduction on the size of the wings and conclude that the reduction is mainly caused by the periodicity of the wings, rather than by local resonances in them. These findings help to better understand the mechanisms controlling coherent heat conduction in periodic resonant nanostructures.

Thermal Conductivity Reduction in a Silicon Thin Film with Nanocones.

Modern thermoelectric devices incline toward inexpensive, environmentally friendly, and CMOS-compatible materials, such as silicon. To improve the thermoelectric performance of silicon, researchers try to decrease its thermal conductivity using various nanostructuring methods. However, most of these methods have limited efficiency because they are costly and damaging for the internal structure of silicon. Here, we propose a cost-effective, large-area, and maskless nanofabrication method that creates external nanocones on the silicon surface while preserving its interior. Our experiments show that these nanocones reduce the thermal conductivity of thin silicon membranes by more than 40%. Using a modified Callaway-Holland model, we study how the thermal conductivity is affected by various phonon scattering processes in the 4-295 K temperature range. We conclude that the nanocones generate additional surface scattering, which causes the thermal conductivity reduction. The proposed nanocones and their simple fabrication method are promising for the planar thermoelectric devices based on silicon.

Probing ballistic thermal conduction in segmented silicon nanowires.

Ballistic heat conduction in semiconductors is a remarkable but controversial nanoscale phenomenon, which implies that nanostructures can conduct thermal energy without dissipation. Here, we experimentally probed ballistic thermal transport at distances of 400-800 nm and temperatures of 4-250 K. Measuring thermal properties of straight and serpentine silicon nanowires, we found that at 4 K heat conduction is quasi-ballistic with stronger ballisticity at shorter length scales. As we increased the temperature, quasi-ballistic heat conduction weakened and gradually turned into diffusive regime at temperatures above 150 K. Our Monte Carlo simulations illustrate how this transition is driven by different scattering processes and linked to the surface roughness and the temperature. These results demonstrate the length and temperature limits of quasi-ballistic heat conduction in silicon nanostructures, knowledge of which is essential for thermal management in microelectronics.

Thermoelectric Enhancement of Silicon Membranes by Ultrathin Amorphous Films.

We propose a simple, low-cost, and large-area method to increase the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) in silicon membranes by the deposition of an ultrathin aluminum layer. Transmission electron microscopy showed that short deposition of aluminum on a silicon substrate covers the surface with an ultrathin amorphous film, which, according to recent theoretical works, efficiently destroys phonon wave packets. As a result, we measured 30-40% lower thermal conductivity in silicon membranes covered with aluminum films while the electrical conductivity was not affected. Thus, we have achieved 40-45% higher ZT values in membranes covered with aluminum films. To demonstrate a practical application, we applied this method to enhance the performance of a silicon membrane-based thermoelectric device and measured 42% higher power generation.

Quasi-Ballistic Heat Conduction due to Lévy Phonon Flights in Silicon Nanowires.

Future of silicon-based microelectronics depends on solving the heat dissipation problem. A solution may lie in a nanoscale phenomenon known as ballistic heat conduction, which implies conduction of heat without heating the conductor. However, attempts to demonstrate this phenomenon experimentally are controversial and scarce, whereas its mechanism in confined nanostructures is yet to be fully understood. Here, we experimentally demonstrate quasi-ballistic heat conduction in silicon nanowires (NWs). We show that the ballisticity is the strongest in short NWs at low temperatures but weakens as the NW length or temperature is increased. Yet, even at room temperature, quasi-ballistic heat conduction remains visible in short NWs. To better understand this phenomenon, we probe directions and lengths of phonon flights. Our experiments and simulations show that the quasi-ballistic phonon transport in NWs is essentially the Lévy walk with short flights between the NW boundaries and long ballistic leaps along the NW. Thus, we conclude that ballistic heat conduction is present in silicon even at room temperature in sufficiently small nanostructures and may yet improve thermal management in silicon-based microelectronics.

Thermal conductivity reduction in silicon fishbone nanowires.

Semiconductor nanowires are potential building blocks for future thermoelectrics because of their low thermal conductivity. Recent theoretical works suggest that thermal conductivity of nanowires can be further reduced by additional constrictions, pillars or wings. Here, we experimentally study heat conduction in silicon nanowires with periodic wings, called fishbone nanowires. We find that like in pristine nanowires, the nanowire cross-section controls thermal conductivity of fishbone nanowires. However, the periodic wings further reduce the thermal conductivity. Whereas an increase in the wing width only slightly affects the thermal conductivity, an increase in the wing depth clearly reduces thermal conductivity, and this reduction is stronger in the structures with narrower nanowires. Our experimental data is supported by the Callaway-Holland model, finite element modelling and phonon transport simulations.

Ballistic thermal transport in silicon nanowires.

We have experimentally investigated the impact of dimensions and temperature on the thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires fabricated using a top-down approach. Both the width and temperature dependences of thermal conductivity agree with those in the existing literature. The length dependence of thermal conductivity exhibits a transition from semi-ballistic thermal phonon transport at 4 K to fully diffusive transport at room temperature. We additionally calculated the phonon dispersion in these structures in the framework of the theory of elasticity and showed that the thermal conductance increases with width. This agrees with our experimental observations and supports the pertinence of using the modified phonon dispersion at low temperatures.

Heat guiding and focusing using ballistic phonon transport in phononic nanostructures.

Unlike classical heat diffusion at macroscale, nanoscale heat conduction can occur without energy dissipation because phonons can ballistically travel in straight lines for hundreds of nanometres. Nevertheless, despite recent experimental evidence of such ballistic phonon transport, control over its directionality, and thus its practical use, remains a challenge, as the directions of individual phonons are chaotic. Here, we show a method to control the directionality of ballistic phonon transport using silicon membranes with arrays of holes. First, we demonstrate that the arrays of holes form fluxes of phonons oriented in the same direction. Next, we use these nanostructures as directional sources of ballistic phonons and couple the emitted phonons into nanowires. Finally, we introduce thermal lens nanostructures, in which the emitted phonons converge at the focal point, thus focusing heat into a spot of a few hundred nanometres. These results motivate the concept of ray-like heat manipulations at the nanoscale.

Heat conduction tuning by wave nature of phonons.

The world communicates to our senses of vision, hearing, and touch in the language of waves, because light, sound, and even heat essentially consist of microscopic vibrations of different media. The wave nature of light and sound has been extensively investigated over the past century and is now widely used in modern technology. However, the wave nature of heat has been the subject of mostly theoretical studies because its experimental demonstration, let alone practical use, remains challenging due to its extremely short wavelengths. We show a possibility to use the wave nature of heat for thermal conductivity tuning via spatial short-range order in phononic crystal nanostructures. Our experimental and theoretical results suggest that interference of thermal phonons occurs in strictly periodic nanostructures and slows the propagation of heat. This finding expands the methodology of heat transfer engineering to the wave nature of heat.