Thermal diffusivity and its lower bound in orthorhombic SnSe

2021/04/30 by Valentina Martelli, Fabio Abud, Julio Larrea Jiménez +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mtrl-sci

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.104.035208

published as Phys. Rev. B 104, 035208 (2021)

arxiv created 2021/07/15 · arxiv updated 2021/08/24

Abstract

The orthorhombic monochalcogenide SnSe has attracted much attention in recent years as a promising high-temperature thermoelectric material. We present a study of its thermal conductivity and specific heat of SnSe between 2~K and 300~K and quantify its anisotropic thermal diffusivity, D. For both crystallographic orientations, thermal diffusivity remains above the recently identified Planckian limit (D > v_s² τ_P, where v_s is the sound velocity and τ_P= ℏ/k_BT) and its anisotropy in D is set by the anisotropy of v_s. Comparison with cubic members of the IV-VI family leads to a consistent picture, where the diffusivity in all members of the family is set by the product of v_s, τ_P and the 'melting' velocity derived from the melting temperature.

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