English

Anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering at interface by non-equilibrium Green's function formalism

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2021-05-26 v1

Abstract

The understanding and modeling of inelastic scattering of thermal phonons at a solid/solid interface remain an open question. We present a fully quantum theoretical scheme to quantify the effect of anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering at an interface via non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism. Based on the real-space scattering rate matrix, a decomposition of the interfacial spectral energy exchange is made into contributions from local and non-local anharmonic interactions, of which the former is shown to be predominant for high-frequency phonons whereas both are important for low-frequency phonons. The anharmonic decay of interfacial phonon modes is revealed to play a crucial role in bridging the bulk modes across the interface. The overall quantitative contribution of anharmonicity to thermal boundary conductance is found to be moderate. The present work promotes a deeper understanding of heat transport at the interface and an intuitive interpretation of anharmonic phonon NEGF formalism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2103.10087,
  title  = {Anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering at interface by non-equilibrium Green's function formalism},
  author = {Yangyu Guo and Zhongwei Zhang and Marc Bescond and Shiyun Xiong and Masahiro Nomura and Sebastian Volz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.10087},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T00:18:21.168Z