Effect of phonon focusing on Knudsen flow of phonon gas in single-crystal nanowires made of spintronics materials

Abstract

Effect of anisotropy of elastic energy on the phonon propagation in single-crystal nanowires made of Fe, Cu, MgO, InSb, and GaAs materials that are used to fabricate spintronics devices in the regime of the Knudsen flow of phonon gas has been studied. A new method of analyzing the focusing of quasi-transverse modes has been suggested, which made it possible to determine the average values of the densities of phonon states in the regions of focusing and defocusing slow and fast quasi-transverse modes. The effect of phonon focusing on the anisotropy of heat conductivity and lengths of the phonon free paths has been analyzed for all acoustic modes that exist in spintronics nanostructures. It has been shown that for all the nanowires investigated the angular dependences of the free paths of fast and slow transverse modes in the {100} and {110} planes correlate with the angular dependences of the densities of phonon states for these modes. Directions of the heat flux that ensure the maximum and minimum phonon heat conductivity in the nanowires have been determined.