Ultralow thermal conductivity of silicon nanowire arrays by molecular dynamics simulation

We investigate the thermal conductivities of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) and their arrays based on molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that diminishing diameter, roughing surface and doping impurity of SiNWs can reduce their thermal conductivities by two or three orders of magnitude compared with that of bulk silicon crystals due to the strong phonon boundary and phonon impurity scattering. The simulated thermal conductivities of SiNW arrays demonstrate that arraying nanowires can further lower the thermal conductivity owing to the laterally-coupled effect, and the thermal conductivity of arrays decreases notably with the increased nanowire volume fraction, resulting in an ultralow thermal conductivity for the doped SiNW arrays with rough surfaces, which provides theoretical guidance of thermal management for semiconductor nanowire based microelectronic and thermoelectric devices.