Analytical Green's function of the multidimensional frequency-dependent phonon Boltzmann equation
Abstract
Thermal phonon transport at length scales comparable to mean free paths is governed by the Boltzmann equation, which is challenging to solve due to its high dimensionality. Here, we present an analytical Green's function for the frequency-dependent, multidimensional Boltzmann equation under the relaxation-time approximation. The new analytical solution is valid from diffusive to ballistic transport regimes and rigorously includes frequency dependence of phonon properties. We demonstrate that our result enables simple closed-form solutions for a number of multidimensional problems for which the only prior solution methods have been computationally expensive numerical simulations.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Reconstructing the phonon MFP spectrum from the measured KA(Lc) and the derived suppression function is an inverse problem that involves complex optimization.
“Reconstructing the phonon MFP spectrum [ i.e . ߶ ሺΛሻ or ߙ ሺΛሻ ] from the measured ܭ ሺ ܮ ሻ and the derived ܵ ቀ ஃ ቁ is thus an inverse problem of Eq.(4.14) that involves complex optimization. 203-205”
From Tutorial: Time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) for thermal property characterization of bulk and thin film materials (2018) · cites this paper as [204]
Cites
Kresse, G., & Furthmüller, J. (1996) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.54.11169 · Cited by 123,652 · see citing works
Kresse, G., & Furthmüller, J. (1996) · Computational Materials Science · doi:10.1016/0927-0256(96)00008-0 · Cited by 75,541 · see citing works
Kresse, G., & Häfner, J. (1994) · Physical review. B, Condensed matter · doi:10.1103/physrevb.49.14251 · Cited by 22,964 · see citing works
Table of Integrals, Series, and Products
(1980) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/c2013-0-10754-4 · Cited by 18,772 · see citing works
Chandrasekhar, S. (1950) · Cited by 8,606 · see citing works
Table of Integrals, Series and Products.
L., Y., Gradshteyn, I. S., & RYZHIK, I. M. (1981) · Mathematics of Computation · doi:10.2307/2007757 · Cited by 8,572 · see citing works
Ab initio molecular dynamics for open-shell transition metals
Kresse, G., & Häfner, J. (1993) · Physical review. B, Condensed matter · doi:10.1103/physrevb.48.13115 · Cited by 8,341 · see citing works
Hudson, R. G. (1917) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 6,912 · see citing works
High-performance bulk thermoelectrics with all-scale hierarchical architectures
Biswas, K., He, J., Blum, I. D., Wu, C., Hogan, T. P., Seidman, D. N., Dravid, V. P., & Kanatzidis, M. G. (2012) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature11439 · Cited by 4,761 · see citing works
Introduction to Electrodynamics
Griffiths, D. J. (2017) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108333511 · Cited by 3,438 · see citing works
ShengBTE: A solver of the Boltzmann transport equation for phonons
Li, W., Carrete, J., A. Katcho, N., & Mingo, N. (2014) · Computer Physics Communications · doi:10.1016/j.cpc.2014.02.015 · Cited by 3,147 · see citing works
Thermal conductivity measurement from 30 to 750 K: the 3ω method
Cahill, D. G. (1990) · Review of Scientific Instruments · doi:10.1063/1.1141498 · Cited by 1,928 · see citing works
Nanoscale thermal transport. II. 2003–2012
Cahill, D. G., Braun, P. V., Chen, G., Clarke, D. R., Fan, S., Goodson, K. E., Keblinski, P., King, W. P., Mahan, G. D., Majumdar, A., et al. (2014) · Applied Physics Reviews · doi:10.1063/1.4832615 · Cited by 1,763 · see citing works
Energy dissipation and transport in nanoscale devices
Pop, E. (2010) · Nano Research · doi:10.1007/s12274-010-1019-z · Cited by 1,269 · see citing works
Zur kinetischen Theorie der Wärmeleitung in Kristallen
Peierls, R. F. (1929) · Annalen der Physik · doi:10.1002/andp.19293950803 · Cited by 1,008 · see citing works
Microscale Heat Conduction in Dielectric Thin Films
Majumdar, A. (1993) · Journal of Heat Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.2910673 · Cited by 910 · see citing works
Nanoscale Energy Transport And Conversion
Chen, G. (2005) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195159424.001.0001 · Cited by 860 · see citing works
Heat transport in silicon from first-principles calculations
Esfarjani, K., Chen, G., & Stokes, H. T. (2011) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.84.085204 · Cited by 759 · see citing works
Ballistic-Diffusive Heat-Conduction Equations
Chen, G. (2001) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.86.2297 · Cited by 545 · see citing works
Elementary solutions of the transport equation and their applications
Case, K. M. (1960) · Annals of Physics · doi:10.1016/0003-4916(60)90060-9 · Cited by 517 · see citing works
A new class of doped nanobulk high-figure-of-merit thermoelectrics by scalable bottom-up assembly
Mehta, R. J., Zhang, Y., Karthik, C., Singh, B., Siegel, R. W., Borca‐Tasciuc, T., & Ramanath, G. (2012) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/nmat3213 · Cited by 515 · see citing works
Transient ballistic and diffusive phonon heat transport in thin films
Joshi, A., & Majumdar, A. (1993) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.354111 · Cited by 409 · see citing works
Introduction to Electrodynamics
Griffiths, D. J., & Inglefield, C. (2005) · American Journal of Physics · doi:10.1119/1.4766311 · Cited by 388 · see citing works
Nonlocal and Nonequilibrium Heat Conduction in the Vicinity of Nanoparticles
Chen, G. (1996) · Journal of Heat Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.2822665 · Cited by 382 · see citing works
Thermal conductivity of diamond nanowires from first principles
Li, W., Mingo, N., Lindsay, L., Broido, D., Stewart, D. A., & Katcho, N. A. (2012) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.85.195436 · Cited by 380 · see citing works
Péraud, J.-P. M., & Hadjiconstantinou, N. G. (2011) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.84.205331 · Cited by 315 · see citing works
Lattice thermal conductivity of silicon from empirical interatomic potentials
Broido, D., Ward, A., & Mingo, N. (2005) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.72.014308 · Cited by 296 · see citing works
Direct Solution to the Linearized Phonon Boltzmann Equation
Chaput, L. (2013) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.110.265506 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
Hao, Q., Chen, G., & Jeng, M.-S. (2009) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.3266169 · Cited by 222 · see citing works
Yang, R., Chen, G., Laroche, M., & Taur, Y. (2005) · ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.1857941 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
An alternative approach to efficient simulation of micro/nanoscale phonon transport
Péraud, J.-P. M., & Hadjiconstantinou, N. G. (2012) · Applied Physics Letters · doi:10.1063/1.4757607 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
An alternative approach to efficient simulation of micro/nanoscale phonon transport
Péraud, J.-P. M., & Hadjiconstantinou, N. G. (2012) · DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) · Cited by 136 · see citing works
Quasiballistic heat transfer studied using the frequency-dependent Boltzmann transport equation
Chen, G., Minnich, A. J., Mansoor, S. B., & Yilbaş, B. S. (2011) · DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) · Cited by 129 · see citing works
Self-citationNonlocal theory of thermal conductivity
Mahan, G. D., & Claro, F. H. (1988) · Physical review. B, Condensed matter · doi:10.1103/physrevb.38.1963 · Cited by 126 · see citing works
Johnson, J. A., Maznev, A. A., Bulsara, M. T., Fitzgerald, E. A., Harman, T. C., Calawa, S. D., Vineis, C. J., Turner, G. W., & Nelson, K. A. (2012) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.3675467 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
Transport regimes in quasiballistic heat conduction
Hua, C., & Minnich, A. J. (2014) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.89.094302 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
Self-citationSiewert, C. E., & Zweifel, P. F. (1966) · Annals of Physics · doi:10.1016/0003-4916(66)90290-9 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Simulation of Unsteady Small Heat Source Effects in Sub-Micron Heat Conduction
Narumanchi, S. V. J., Murthy, J. Y., & Amon, C. H. (2003) · Journal of Heat Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.1603774 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Johnson, J. A., Fitzgerald, E. A., Harman, T. C., Vineis, C. J., Maznev, A. A., Bulsara, M. T., Calawa, S. D., Turner, G. W., & Nelson, K. A. (2011) · DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Ordoñez-Miranda, J., Yang, R., & Alvarado-Gil, J. J. (2011) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.3573512 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
The Energy-Dependent Milne Problem with a Simple Scattering Kernel
Williams, M. M. R. (1964) · Nuclear Science and Engineering · doi:10.13182/nse64-a18326 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
The Transport Theory of Temperature Waves in Insulators
Englman, R. (1958) · Proceedings of the Physical Society · doi:10.1088/0370-1328/72/3/309 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Simons, S. (1971) · Journal of Physics C Solid State Physics · doi:10.1088/0022-3719/4/14/024 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Some comments on the propagation of temperature waves in insulators
Williams, M. M. R. (1971) · Journal of Physics D Applied Physics · doi:10.1088/0022-3727/4/8/322 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Jiang, P., Qian, X., & Yang, R. (2018) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.5046944 · Cited by 424 · see citing works
Experimental metrology to obtain thermal phonon transmission coefficients at solid interfaces
Hua, C., Chen, X., Ravichandran, N. K., & Minnich, A. J. (2017) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.95.205423 · Cited by 102 · see citing works
Self-citationGeneralization of Fourier’s Law into Viscous Heat Equations
Simoncelli, M., Marzari, N., & Cepellotti, A. (2020) · Physical Review X · doi:10.1103/physrevx.10.011019 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Zhang, H., Hua, C., Ding, D., & Minnich, A. J. (2015) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/srep09121 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Self-citationQuantum mechanical modeling of anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering in nanostructures
Guo, Y., Bescond, M., Zhang, Z., Luisier, M., Nomura, M., & Volz, S. G. (2020) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.195412 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Quantitative Analysis of Nonequilibrium Phonon Transport Near a Nanoscale Hotspot
Xu, J., Hu, Y., & Bao, H. (2023) · Physical Review Applied · doi:10.1103/physrevapplied.19.014007 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Generalized Fourier's law for nondiffusive thermal transport: Theory and experiment
Hua, C., Lindsay, L., Chen, X., & Minnich, A. J. (2019) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.100.085203 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Self-citationExploring the Extremes of Heat Conduction in Anisotropic Materials
Minnich, A. J. (2016) · Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering · doi:10.1080/15567265.2016.1170080 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Self-citationChiloyan, V., Huberman, S., Ding, Z., Mendoza, J. M., Maznev, A. A., Nelson, K. A., & Chen, G. (2021) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.104.245424 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Space-time dependent thermal conductivity in nonlocal thermal transport
Hua, C., & Lindsay, L. (2020) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.104310 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Self-citationMultidimensional quasiballistic thermal transport in transient grating spectroscopy
Minnich, A. J. (2015) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.92.085203 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Self-citationHua, C., & Minnich, A. J. (2018) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.014307 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Self-citationChiloyan, V., Zeng, L., Huberman, S., Maznev, A. A., Nelson, K. A., & Chen, G. (2016) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.93.155201 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Huberman, S., Chiloyan, V., Duncan, R. A., Zeng, L., Jia, R., Maznev, A. A., Fitzgerald, E. A., Nelson, K. A., & Chen, G. (2017) · Physical Review Materials · doi:10.1103/physrevmaterials.1.054601 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Maassen, J., & Lundstrom, M. (2016) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.4942836 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Temperature in a Peierls-Boltzmann treatment of nonlocal phonon heat transport
Allen, P. B., & Perebeinos, V. (2018) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.98.085427 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Chiloyan, V., Zeng, L., Huberman, S., Maznev, A. A., Nelson, K. A., & Chen, G. (2016) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.4955164 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Quasiballistic Thermal Transport from Nanoscale Heaters and the Role of the Spatial Frequency
Chen, X., Hua, C., Zhang, H., Ravichandran, N. K., & Minnich, A. J. (2018) · Physical Review Applied · doi:10.1103/physrevapplied.10.054068 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Self-citationQuasiballistic heat removal from small sources studied from first principles
Vermeersch, B., & Mingo, N. (2018) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.045205 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Role of thermalizing and nonthermalizing walls in phonon heat conduction along thin films
Ravichandran, N. K., & Minnich, A. J. (2016) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.93.035314 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Self-citationEnhancing the thermal conductivity of semiconductor thin films via phonon funneling
Dionne, C. J., Thakur, S., Scholz, N., Hopkins, P. E., & Giri, A. (2024) · npj Computational Materials · doi:10.1038/s41524-024-01364-w · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Heat pulse propagation and nonlocal phonon heat transport in one-dimensional harmonic chains
Allen, P. B., & Nghiem, N. A. (2022) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.105.174302 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Allen, P. B. (2018) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.134307 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Nondiffusive Thermal Transport Increases Temperature Rise in RRAM Filaments
Regner, K. T., & Malen, J. A. (2016) · IEEE Electron Device Letters · doi:10.1109/led.2016.2539223 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Qian, X., Zhang, C., Liu, T., & Yang, R. (2025) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.111.035406 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
NanoTherm: An Analytical Fourier-Boltzmann Framework for Full Chip Thermal Simulations
Varshney, S., Sultan, H., Jain, P., & Sarangi, S. R. (2019) · doi:10.1109/iccad45719.2019.8942159 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Heat transport in semiconductor crystals: Beyond the local-linear approximation
Ezzahri, Y., Joulain, K., & Ordoñez-Miranda, J. (2020) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/5.0017188 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Compact stochastic models for multidimensional quasiballistic thermal transport
Vermeersch, B. (2016) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.4965866 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
API phonons: Python interfaces for phonon transport modeling
Qian, X., Quan, G., Liu, T., & Yang, R. (2024) · Materials Today Physics · doi:10.1016/j.mtphys.2024.101630 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Modeling ballistic phonon transport from a cylindrical electron beam heat source
Wehmeyer, G. (2019) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.5115165 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Time-domain theory of transient heat conduction in the local limit
Crawford, D. E., Zeng, Y. D., Vidal, J., & Dong, J. (2025) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/p8wg-p1j3 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Christenson, J. G., Kroonblawd, M. P., Austin, R., Fried, L. E., & Phillips, R. J. (2020) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.205406 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Aerogels with ultra-low thermal conductivity: Structural design, processing and applications
Gong, M., Guo, X., Wei, Z., Guo, Y., Yang, H., & Yang, S. (2026) · Materials Science and Engineering R Reports · doi:10.1016/j.mser.2026.101264 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Jin, J. S. (2023) · Physica B Condensed Matter · doi:10.1016/j.physb.2023.414828 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Jin, J. S. (2026) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/5.0315163 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
On the question of second sound in germanium: a theoretical viewpoint
Huberman, S., Zhang, C., & Haibeh, J. A. (2025) · Journal of Physics Condensed Matter · doi:10.1088/1361-648x/ae0dd6 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Wehmeyer, G., Pickel, A. D., & Dames, C. (2018) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.98.014304 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Relativistic stable processes in quasiballistic heat conduction in semiconductors
Chakraborty, P., Vermeersch, B., Shakouri, A., & Tindel, S. (2020) · Physical review. E · doi:10.1103/physreve.101.042110 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
An Approximated Model of Boltzmann Transport Equation for Nano-Scale Thermal Analysis
Chang, C.-C., Chiou, H., & Lee, Y. (2022) · I-THERM :/I-THERM - Intersociety Conference on Thermal Phenomena in Electronic Systems · doi:10.1109/itherm54085.2022.9899632 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Invariant for one-dimensional heat conduction in dielectrics and metals
Sajadi, S. M., Ordoñez-Miranda, J., Hill, J. M., Ezzahri, Y., Joulain, K., & Ghasemi, H. (2017) · Europhysics Letters (EPL) · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/118/34001 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Nonlocal thermal transport modeling using the thermal distributor
Kefayati, A., Allen, P. B., & Perebeinos, V. (2022) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.105.235402 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Zhmakin, A. I. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-25973-9_3 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
A complex thermal conductivity to model quasi-ballistic phonon transport under periodic heating
Li, T., Jiang, B., & Chen, Z. (2025) · Newton · doi:10.1016/j.newton.2025.100092 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Radiative contribution to thermal grating decay
Maznev, A. A., Robertson, S. G., Short, M. P., & Nelson, K. A. (2021) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/5.0067564 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Unified statistical theory of heat conduction in nonuniform media
Zeng, Y. D., & Dong, J. (2026) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/hx28-4ksc
Thermal transport in crystals: from the quantum Dyson equation to mesoscopic phonon hydrodynamics
Lucente, E. D., Simoncelli, M., & Marzari, N. (2026) · Advances In Physics · doi:10.1080/00018732.2026.2685376
- Authors
- Hua, C., & Minnich, A. J.
- Affiliations
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Minnich, Austin J.
- Venue
- Physical Review B
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2014-12-31
- Volume
- 90
- Issue
- 21
- ISSN
- 1098-0121 (ISSN-L)
- 1550-235X
- OpenAlex
- W2051291984
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 1.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Physical Review B (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (CBET CAREER 1254213)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Thermal properties of materials
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Thermoelastic and Magnetoelastic Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Applied Mathematics › Gas Dynamics and Kinetic Theory
- Keywords
- phonon Boltzmann equation, Green's function, relaxation time approximation, multidimensional transport, ballistic transport, diffusive transport, analytical solution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review