Nanoscale Thermal Transport in Hybrid Materials and across Interfaces

Understanding nanoscale thermal transport processes is essential to design nanomaterials with desired thermal transport properties for thermal energy conversion and management. Despite the significant progress in thermal transport of inorganic crystals, thermal transport in more complicated materials and across material interfaces remains much less understood. In this talk, I will present my research group’s efforts to uncover nanoscale thermal transport mechanisms in hybrid organic-inorganic materials and across interfaces, using atomic modeling and experimental measurements. I will start with our study on phonon dynamics in hybrid perovskites using inelastic x-ray scattering. It provides useful insights into their ultralow thermal conductivity. I will then share our latest work on phonon Anderson localization in aperiodic superlattices, where we observe the direct evidence of phonon Anderson localization. Last but not least, I will present our recent development on anharmonic atomistic Green’s function, which allows us to capture the importance of inelastic scattering across the interfaces and observe quantum thermal rectification.