title: Nanophononic metamaterial: thermal conductivity reduction by local resonance.
abstract: We present the concept of a locally resonant nanophononic metamaterial for thermoelectric energy conversion. Our configuration, which is based on a silicon thin film with a periodic array of pillars erected on one or two of the free surfaces, qualitatively alters the base thin-film phonon spectrum due to a hybridization mechanism between the pillar local resonances and the underlying atomic lattice dispersion. Using an experimentally fitted lattice-dynamics-based model, we conservatively predict the metamaterial thermal conductivity to be as low as 50% of the corresponding uniform thin-film value despite the fact that the pillars add more phonon modes to the spectrum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.affiliation: Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Mahmoud I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Hussein