Anomalous thermal properties of a harmonic chain with correlated isotopic disorder

TL;DR

This paper investigates how long-range correlations in isotopic disorder affect thermal transport in harmonic chains, revealing the ability to control heat flow by tuning disorder correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a perturbative analytical method to study the impact of correlated disorder on thermal properties and demonstrates frequency-selective heat flow control.

Findings

Correlated disorder can suppress or enhance vibrational modes in specific frequency ranges.

Long-range correlations enable frequency-selective heat flow.

Analytical expressions for temperature evolution and heat flow are derived.

Abstract

We analyse the thermal properties of a harmonic chain with weak correlated disorder. With the use of a perturbative approach we derive analytical expressions for the time-evolution of the chain temperature and of the heat flow when both ends of the chain are coupled to heat baths. Our analytical and numerical results demonstrate that specific long-range correlations of the isotopic disorder can suppress or enhance the vibrational modes in pre-defined frequency windows. In this way one can arrange a frequency-selective heat flow through disordered chains.