The lattice thermal conductivities of silicon clathrate frameworks II and VIII are investigated by using ab initio lattice dynamics and an iterative solution of the linearized Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) for phonons. Within the temperature range 100-350 K, the clathrate structures II and VIII were found to have lower lattice thermal conductivity values than the silicon diamond structure (d-Si) by factors of 1/2 and 1/3, respectively. The main reason for the lower lattice thermal conductivity of the clathrate structure II in comparison to d-Si was found to be the harmonic phonon spectra, while in the case of the clathrate structure VIII, the difference is mainly due to the harmonic phonon spectra and partly due to the shorter relaxation times of phonons. In the studied clathrate frameworks, the anharmonic effects have larger impact on the lattice thermal conductivity than the size of the unit cell. For the structure II, the predicted lattice thermal conductivity differs approximately by a factor of 20 from the previous experimental results obtained for a polycrystalline sample at room temperature.
The thermal and lattice dynamical properties of seven silicon clathrate framework structures are investigated with ab initio density functional methods (frameworks I, II, IV, V, VII, VIII, and H). The negative thermal expansion (NTE) phenomenon is investigated by means of quasiharmonic approximation and applying it to equal time displacement correlation functions. The thermal properties of the studied clathrate frameworks, excluding the VII framework, resemble those of the crystalline silicon diamond structure. The clathrate framework VII was found to have anomalous NTE temperature range up to 300 K and it is suitable for further studies of the mechanisms of NTE. Investigation of the displacement correlation functions revealed that in NTE, the volume derivatives of the mean square displacements and mean square relative displacements of atoms behave similarly to the vibrational entropy volume derivatives and consequently to the coefficients of thermal expansion as a function of temperature. All studied clathrate frameworks, excluding the VII framework, possess a phonon band gap or even two in the case of the framework V.
The method of many-body Green's functions is developed for arbitrary systems of electrons and nuclei starting from the full (beyond Born-Oppenheimer) Hamiltonian of Coulomb interactions and kinetic energies. The theory presented here resolves the problems arising from the translational and rotational invariance of this Hamiltonian that afflict the existing many-body Green's function theories. We derive a coupled set of exact equations for the electronic and nuclear Green's functions and provide a systematic way to approximately compute the properties of arbitrary many-body systems of electrons and nuclei beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. The case of crystalline solids is discussed in detail.
[Al 4 Si 19 ], the order-of-magnitude reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity was found to be mostly due to relaxation times and group velocities differing from Si 23 and [Si 19 P 4 ]Cl 4 . The difference in the relaxation times and group velocities arises primarily due to the phonon spectrum at low frequencies, resulting eventually from the differences in the second-order interatomic force constants (IFCs). The obtained third-order IFCs were rather similar for all materials considered here. The present findings are similar to those obtained earlier for some skutterudites. The predicted lattice thermal conductivity of Na 4 [Al 4 Si 19 ] is in line with the experimentally measured thermal conductivity of recently synthesized type-I Zintl clathrate Na 8 [Al 8 Si 38 ] (polycrystalline samples).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.