In this document we show how to reproduce results in the paper "Thermal transport in SiGe superlattice thin films and nanowires", Keng-hua Lin, and Alejandro Strachan Physical Review B 87, 115302 (2011) using the nanoMATERIALS nanoscale heat transport tool in nanoHUB. Here is the paper abstract. 

We compute the thermal conductivity of superlattice (SL) thin films and nanowires for various SL periods and total specimen lengths using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics. Both types of materials exhibit similar behaviors with respect to SL period but the thermal conductivity of the thin films exhibits a significantly higher sensitivity to the specimen length. Notably, the thermal conductivity of SL thin films is smaller than those of the corresponding nanowires for specimen lengths below approximately 35 nm. These results arise from the complex dependence of the conductivities of the interfaces and the SL components on the specimen size and period. These trends and observations are explained using a simple phonon model that builds on the relationship between the cumulative thermal conductivity and the phonon wavelength.

Jonathan Dunn, Graduate Student, School of Materials Engineering at Purdue.

Ale Strachan, Professor School of Materials Engineering at Purdue.

Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• “Thermal Transport in SiGe Superlattice Thin Films and Nanowires: Effects of Specimen and Periodic Lengths”, Keng-Hua Lin* and A. Strachan, Physical Review B, 87, 115302 (2013). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.115302   

• Alejandro Strachan, Jonathan Mark Dunn (2015), "Reproducing results of "Thermal transport in SiGe superlattice thin films and nanowires"," https://nanohub.org/resources/22121.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. materials science
2. molecular dynamics (MD)
3. silicon
4. thermal conductivity
5. thermal transport