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Decoding thermal transport mechanisms induced by short-range order in amorphous system

Zhongwei Zhang1, Rui Ma1, Shuang Lu1, Sebastian Volz1,2, and Jie Chen1,*

  • 1Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science, China–EU Joint Lab for Nanophononics, MOE Key Laboratory of Advanced Micro-structured Materials, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People's Republic of China
  • 2Laboratory for Integrated Micro and Mechatronic Systems, CNRS-IIS UMI 2820, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

  • *Contact author: jie@tongji.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013007 – Published 7 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/k5pw-jnl8

Abstract

Despite the absence of long-range structural order, amorphous solids retain an atomic-scale short-range ordered environment. However, the mechanisms through which short-range order influences vibrational modes and its subsequent effects on thermal conductivity remain elusive. In this work, we employ molecular dynamics and lattice dynamics simulations to investigate how short-range order modulates vibrational properties and thermal transport in amorphous silicon. Our simulations reveal that rapid cooling rates during the melt-quench process result in amorphous silicon structures with diminished short-range order. This reduction primarily intensifies the scattering of propagative vibrational modes for both transverse and longitudinal polarizations, particularly near the Ioffe-Regel crossover. Consequently, enhanced scattering weakens the mode correlation of propagative modes, further suppressing thermal conductivity. Additionally, our spatial coherence analysis demonstrates that reduced short-range order diminishes the wavelike behavior of propagative modes. Our findings provide a fundamental interpretation of the prevailing concept of mode correlation with the spatial coherence of thermal vibrations in amorphous systems, as well as physical insights into the role of short-range order in the wavelike nature of vibrational modes and the engineering of thermal transport in amorphous materials.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 013007– Published 7 January, 2026
  • Received 15 March 2025
  • Accepted 10 December 2025
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