Compression-induced anomalous thermal transport in the giant negative thermal expansion material NaB(CN)
Phys. Rev. B 114, 154307 – Published 16 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9yn4-8wn9
Abstract
NaB(CN) exhibits giant negative thermal expansion (NTE) that is closely associated with low-frequency phonons with large negative Grüneisen parameters. Although compression-induced softening of negative-Grüneisen phonons can modify lattice thermal conductivity (), how NTE-active phonon modes differently influence the population () and coherence () contributions to remains unclear. Here, we combine perturbative high-order anharmonic lattice dynamics and homogeneous nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (HNEMD) simulations accelerated by a neuroevolution potential (NEP) to investigate compression-dependent thermal transport in NaB(CN). Both approaches capture a compression-induced decrease in . At 300 K, NEP–HNEMD simulations show that decreases from to over the structurally intact strain range examined up to . In the weak-compression regime, the reduction is dominated by the suppression of . NTE-active framework modes near 2.5 THz soften under compression, reducing phonon group velocities and increasing the three-phonon scattering phase space. By contrast, the compression-induced difference in is mainly concentrated near 7.5 THz, where the relevant phonon pairs harden. Nevertheless, increases only slightly and remains secondary to . These contrasting responses reveal a nonuniform phonon-spectrum reconstruction under compression in which strain selectively reshapes the population and coherence channels of heat transport, linking NTE-active phonons to anomalous thermal transport in NaB(CN).