Thermal Transport in the Quantum Regime

✍ Scribed by Rego, L.G.C.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 144 KB
• Volume: 187
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8965
• DOI: 10.1002/1521-396x(200109)187:1<239::aid-pssa239>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

It was recently predicted that phonon (or heat) transport through quasi-one-dimensional structures should exhibit a universal conductance quantum in the ballistic regime. Analogously to the quantum of electrical conductance (s ¼ e 2 =h), the quantum of thermal conductance is independent of material and geometrical parameters: j ¼ ðp 2 =3Þðk 2 B T=hÞ, where T is the temperature, k B the Boltzmann constant and h Planck's constant. Conclusive evidence for the existence of j has been given by a remarkable experiment performed on suspended dielectric quantum wires at low temperatures. However, differently from its electrical analog, j is independent of the statistics of the carriers, being the same for phonons, electrons and particles of generalized statistics. In this paper we review a model for phonon transport in quasi-one-dimensional dielectric quantum wires. In addition, we summarize the ideas of a comprehensive theory that uses Haldane's concept of generalized statistics to extend the results initially obtained for phonons to particles with generalized statistics.