• Accepted Paper

Anomalously low thermal conductivity in undercoordinated amorphous silicon

Penghong Ci, Xiaolong Yang, Bengisu Yasar, Lin Zhang, Muhua Sun, Lei Jin, Houfu Song, Jiaman Liu, Manel Molina-Ruiz, Alpha T. N’Diaye, Yabin Chen, Lina Yang, Bo Sun, Zhongming Wei, Frances Hellman, Mary Scott, Wu Li, and Junqiao Wu

Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 14 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m9hp-5h28

Abstract

Ultralow thermal conductivity (κ) underpins thermal insulation and nonequilibrium energy conversion at large temperature gradients. In compositionally pure amorphous silicon with predominantly tetrahedral coordination, a conventional benchmark for minimum thermal conductivity is provided by the Cahill-Watson-Pohl (CWP) model, which constrains the phonon mean free path to half the wavelength. Here, we show an anomalously low κ down to 0.67 W/mK at 300 K, about 33% below this conventional CWP benchmark, in amorphous Si obtained via high-pressure phase engineering. By combining the unified heat-transport framework with molecular dynamics simulations, we attribute the ultralow κ to unusually undercoordinated Si sites generated by rapid mechanical quenching from high pressure. These sites generate inhomogeneous local force fields and seed rattling-like lattice dynamics, leading to strong anharmonicity and vibrational-mode localization. Our results offer a microscopic blueprint to engineer solids with anomalously low κ with undercoordination in amorphous networks without introducing alloying or complex-unit-cell architectures.

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