An Alternative Mechanism of Heat Transport in Icosahedral $i$-AlPdMn Quasicrystals

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new theoretical model for heat transport in icosahedral AlPdMn quasicrystals, emphasizing cluster interface scattering and dislocation effects, successfully fitting experimental thermal conductivity data.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach considering cluster interfaces and dislocation-induced strain fields as key phonon scattering mechanisms in quasicrystals.

Findings

Thermal conductivity data fits well with combined wedge disclination dipole and quasiumklapp scattering models.

Cluster interfaces are identified as primary phonon scatterers at low temperatures.

The model explains experimental observations across a wide temperature range.

Abstract

We propose a new theoretical approach to analyze the experimental data for thermal conductivity of single-grain $i$-AlPdMn quasicrystals. The interpretation is based on the picture where cluster interfaces are the main source of phonon scattering at low temperatures. The scattering due to strain fields of cluster interface is considered in terms of finite dislocation wall or, equivalently, wedge disclination dipole. Our numerical calculations show that experimentally observed thermal conductivity in a wide temperature range can be well fitted by a combination of wedge discliantion dipole scattering and quasiumklapp scattering processes.