Heat flux induced blueshift of dominant phonon wavelength and its impact on thermal conductivity

The concept of dominant phonon wavelength is investigated in systems submitted to a heat flux at low temperatures. Using spectral energy distributions, a treatment of two-dimensional and three-dimensional structures is conducted in parallel. We demonstrate a significant reduction of the dominant phonon wavelength, up to 62%, due to a displacement of the phonon spectrum towards higher frequencies in presence of a heat flux. We name this phenomenon blueshift effect. A formula is provided to directly calculate the corrected dominant phonon wavelength. We illustrate the impact of the blueshift effect by showing that a temperature gradient of 10% at 4K yields a 20% reduction in the thermal conductivity. Therefore, ignoring the blueshift effect in a thermal model can notably alter the physical interpretation of measurements. The results suggest that an appropriate heat flux environment can improve thermoelectric device performances.