# Phonon localization in surface-roughness dominated nanowires

## TL;DR

This paper proposes that surface-roughness dominated nanowires are ideal for observing phonon localization, demonstrating through numerical simulations that energy evolution shows clear localization signatures, which could be observed experimentally.

## Contribution

It introduces a new candidate system for experimental observation of phonon localization and provides a universal characterization of disorder strength in such nanowires.

## Key findings

- Numerical simulations show clear phonon localization signatures.
- Surface-roughness nanowires can be experimentally used to observe phonon localization.
- A universal parameter characterizes disorder strength in these systems.

## Abstract

Studies of possible localization of phonons in nanomaterials have gained importance in recent years in the context of thermoelectricity where phonon-localization can reduce thermal conductivity, thereby improving the efficiency of thermoelectric devices. However, despite significant efforts, phonon-localization has not yet been observed experimentally in real materials. Here we propose that surface-roughness dominated nanowires are ideal candidates to observe localization of phonons, and show numerically that the space and time evolution of the energy generated by a heat-pulse injected at a given point shows clear signatures of phonon localization. We suggest that the same configuration might allow experimental observation of localization of phonons. Our results confirm the universality in the surface-roughness dominated regime proposed earlier, which allows us to characterize the strength of disorder by a single parameter combining the width of the wire as well as the mean height of the corrugation and its correlation length.