Part-crystalline part-liquid state and rattling-like thermal damping in materials with chemical-bond hierarchy

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1410349111
• Publication Date: 2014-10-07T02:54:30Z
• Authors: Wujie Qiu; Lili Xi; Ping Wei; Xuezhi Ke; Jihui Yang; Wenqing Zhang
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology

Significance Materials with chemical-bond hierarchy may have a specially mixed part-crystalline part-liquid state and show nontraditional thermal transports beyond the traditional “small-parameter” lattice dynamics approach, especially rattling-like damping thus an unusual conductivity that can only be described by including effective “resonant” phonon scattering.