| TOPICAL REVIEW — Heat conduction and its related interdisciplinary areas |
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Reducing lattice thermal conductivity via phonon engineering: Strategies for high-performance thermoelectrics |
| Yayu Wang(王亚雨)1,2, Hou Jue(侯爵)1, Ming Yang(杨明)2,†, and Xingli Zhang(张兴丽)1,‡ |
1 College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China; 2 Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China |
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Abstract Thermoelectric materials convert heat directly into electricity and are therefore promising for energy harvesting and environmental applications. Ideal high-performance thermoelectrics combine ultralow lattice thermal conductivity, $\kappa_{\rm L}$, with high carrier mobility, a paradigm commonly termed phonon-glass electron-crystal. However, strong coupling between electronic and phononic transport complicates simultaneous optimization of these properties. Because $\kappa_{\rm L}$ is largely independent of electronic transport, targeted suppression of $\kappa_{\rm L}$ is an effective route to partially decouple heat and charge transport. This review summarizes recent advances in reducing $\kappa_{\rm L}$ via two complementary approaches: phonon engineering of bulk nanostructured systems and phonon engineering of low-dimensional materials. In bulk systems, $\kappa_{\rm L}$ may be minimized while retaining high electrical conductivity and maximizing the thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$ by controlling three fundamental phonon parameters: the volumetric specific heat $c_{\rm v}$, the phonon group velocity $v_{\rm g}$, and the phonon relaxation time $\tau $. Low-dimensional architectures, including superlattices, nanowires, and nanocomposites, supply additional levers to suppress lattice heat transport and to tailor the electronic structure. Integrating multiscale and multimodal phonon-control strategies enables significant reductions in $\kappa_{\rm L}$ without sacrificing electronic performance, thereby advancing the phonon-glass electron-crystal paradigm.
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Received: 03 September 2025
Revised: 21 October 2025
Accepted manuscript online: 06 November 2025
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PACS:
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72.15.Jf
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(Thermoelectric and thermomagnetic effects)
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63.20.kg
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(Phonon-phonon interactions)
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84.60.Rb
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(Thermoelectric, electrogasdynamic and other direct energy conversion)
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73.21.-b
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(Electron states and collective excitations in multilayers, quantum wells, mesoscopic, and nanoscale systems)
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| Fund: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFB4602401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51706039), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2572020BF01), the CAS-XDC Project (Grant No. XDC0150303), and the Innovation Foundation for Doctoral Program of Forestry Engineering of Northeast Forestry University (Grant No. LYGC202216). |
Corresponding Authors:
Ming Yang, Xingli Zhang
E-mail: yangming@iet.cn;zhang-xingli@nefu.edu.cn
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Cite this article:
Yayu Wang(王亚雨), Hou Jue(侯爵), Ming Yang(杨明), and Xingli Zhang(张兴丽) Reducing lattice thermal conductivity via phonon engineering: Strategies for high-performance thermoelectrics 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 037201
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