An analytical law for size effects on thermal conductivity of nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new analytical scaling law that predicts how the thermal conductivity of nanostructures varies with their size, aiding phonon engineering applications.

Contribution

It develops and verifies the first analytical law for size-dependent thermal conductivity in nanostructures, validated through large-scale molecular dynamics simulations.

Findings

The law accurately predicts size effects on thermal conductivity.

Validation with large molecular dynamics simulations.

Facilitates phonon engineering in nanostructures.

Abstract

The thermal conductivity of a nanostructure is sensitive to its dimensions. A simple analytical scaling law that predicts how conductivity changes with the dimensions of the structure, however, has not been developed. The lack of such a law is a hurdle in "phonon engineering" of many important applications. Here, we report an analytical scaling law for thermal conductivity of nanostructures as a function of their dimensions. We have verified the law using very large molecular dynamics simulations.