title: Coherent phonon heat conduction in superlattices.
abstract: The control of heat conduction through the manipulation of phonons as coherent waves in solids is of fundamental interest and could also be exploited in applications, but coherent heat conduction has not been experimentally confirmed. We report the experimental observation of coherent heat conduction through the use of finite-thickness superlattices with varying numbers of periods. The measured thermal conductivity increased linearly with increasing total superlattice thickness over a temperature range from 30 to 150 kelvin, which is consistent with a coherent phonon heat conduction process. First-principles and Green's function-based simulations further support this coherent transport model. Accessing the coherent heat conduction regime opens a new venue for phonon engineering for an array of applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Maria N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Luckyanova
authors.forename: Jivtesh
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Garg
authors.forename: Keivan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Esfarjani
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jandl
authors.forename: Mayank T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Bulsara
authors.forename: Aaron J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Austin J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Minnich
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Mildred S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Dresselhaus
authors.forename: Zhifeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Eugene A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Fitzgerald
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen