title: Anderson Localization of Thermal Phonons Leads to a Thermal Conductivity Maximum.
abstract: Our elastic model of ErAs disordered GaAs/AlAs superlattices exhibits a local thermal conductivity maximum as a function of length due to exponentially suppressed Anderson-localized phonons. By analyzing the sample-to-sample fluctuations in the dimensionless conductance, g, the transition from diffusive to localized transport is identified as the crossover from the multichannel to single-channel transport regime g ≈ 1. Single parameter scaling is shown to hold in this crossover regime through the universality of the probability distribution of g that is independent of system size and disorder strength.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mendoza
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
keywords: Anderson localization; Phonon transport; disordered systems; mesoscopic transport; superlattice