Title: Theory of thermal conductivity in low dimensional structures

Abstract

The thermal conductivity of layered systems has been investigated in terms of in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities using modified Callaway model. This formulation uses the relaxation times of various contributing processes that have been obtained in terms of line widths with the help of many-body quantum dynamics of phonons and electrons and the final forms of relaxation times for different scattering processes in low dimensional superstructures have been achieved. The evaluation of line widths is carried out by double time temperature dependent phonon Green’s function obtained via a Hamiltonian that comprises the effects of electron, phonon, impurities and anharmonicities. The thermal conductivity of semiconductor layered structures has been analyzed over a wide temperature range and fairly good agreement between theory and experimental observations has been reported.