Impeded thermal transport in aperiodic BN/C nanotube superlattices due to phonon Anderson localization

Anderson localization of phonons is a kind of phonon wave effect, which has been proved to occur in many structures with disorders. In this work, we introduced aperiodicity to boron nitride/carbon nanotube superlattices (BN/C NT SLs), and used molecular dynamics to calculate the thermal conductivity and the phonon transmission spectrum of the models. The existence of phonon Anderson localization was proved in this quasi one-dimensional structure by analyzing the phonon transmission spectra. Moreover, we introduced interfacial mixing to the aperiodic BN/C NT SLs and found that the coexistence of the two disorder entities (aperiodicity and interfacial mixing) can further decrease the thermal conductivity. In addition, we also showed that anharmonicity can destroy phonon localization at high temperatures. This work provides a reference for designing thermoelectric materials with low thermal conductivity by taking advantage of phonon localization.