The DOI matches its Crossref record; 28 of the 28 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Direct Measurement of Room-Temperature Nondiffusive Thermal Transport Over Micron Distances in a Silicon Membrane
Open accessAbstract
The "textbook" phonon mean free path of heat carrying phonons in silicon at room temperature is ∼40 nm. However, a large contribution to the thermal conductivity comes from low-frequency phonons with much longer mean free paths. We present a simple experiment demonstrating that room-temperature thermal transport in Si significantly deviates from the diffusion model already at micron distances. Absorption of crossed laser pulses in a freestanding silicon membrane sets up a sinusoidal temperature profile that is monitored via diffraction of a probe laser beam. By changing the period of the thermal grating we vary the heat transport distance within the range ∼1-10 μm. At small distances, we observe a reduction in the effective thermal conductivity indicating a transition from the diffusive to the ballistic transport regime for the low-frequency part of the phonon spectrum.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
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?
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“This interpretation is the same as that of Koh and Cahill 16 , and consistent with Minnich et al. 1 and Johnson et al. 19,20 who instead used the laser spot diameter and transient grating period as the cutoff dimensions.”
From Broadband phonon mean free path contributions to thermal conductivity measured using frequency domain thermoreflectance (2013) · cites this paper as [19]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The thermal conductivity exhibits a marked dependence on grating period up to ∼10 μm, a value comparable to that observed in other covalent crystals with higher thermal conductivity such as silicon60,65.”
From Origin of high thermal conductivity in disentangled ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene films: ballistic phonons within enlarged crystals (2022) · cites this paper as [60]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“More recently, transient grating experiments have varied the grating period to study related ballistic phonon transport effects in Si membranes4.”
From Universal phonon mean free path spectra in crystalline semiconductors at high temperature (2013) · cites this paper as [4]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Swartz, E. T., & Pohl, R. O. (1989) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.61.605 · Cited by 2,992
Cahill, D. G., Ford, W. K., Goodson, K. E., Mahan, G. D., Majumdar, A., Maris, H. J., Merlin, R., & Phillpot, S. R. (2003) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.1524305 · Cited by 2,825
The mean free path of electrons in metals
Sondheimer, E. H. (1952) · Advances In Physics · doi:10.1080/00018735200101151 · Cited by 2,650
The conductivity of thin metallic films according to the electron theory of metals
Fuchs, K. P. (1938) · Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · doi:10.1017/s0305004100019952 · Cited by 2,286
Laser-Induced Dynamic Gratings
Eichler, H. J., Günter, P., & Pohl, D. (1986) · Springer series in optical sciences/SPringer series in optical sciences · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-39662-8 · Cited by 1,402
Energy dissipation and transport in nanoscale devices
Pop, E. (2010) · Nano Research · doi:10.1007/s12274-010-1019-z · Cited by 1,308
Thermal conductivity and ballistic-phonon transport in the cross-plane direction of superlattices
Chen, G. (1998) · Physical review. B, Condensed matter · doi:10.1103/physrevb.57.14958 · Cited by 1,099
Self-citationIntrinsic lattice thermal conductivity of semiconductors from first principles
Broido, D. A., Malorny, M., Birner, G., Mingo, N., & Stewart, D. A. (2007) · Applied Physics Letters · doi:10.1063/1.2822891 · Cited by 978
Microscale Heat Conduction in Dielectric Thin Films
Majumdar, A. (1993) · Journal of Heat Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.2910673 · Cited by 910
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
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 401–423 of 423
(2021) · SciPost Physics · doi:10.21468/scipost.report.2713
(2021) · SciPost Physics · doi:10.21468/scipost.report.2666
Борисович, Б. М., & Podolskaya, E. A. (2022) · Mathematics · doi:10.3390/math10214142
Zhmakin, A. I. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-25973-9_1
Heat Propagation: A Fourth Mechanism Allowing Heat Transfer from Cold to HotPreprint
Ma, Y., Qu, Z., & Wu, J. (2023) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-3247009/v1
Zhang, Y., Luo, Z., Xie, Z., Wang, J., Cao, K., & Chen, K. (2024) · ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.4067314
A Voyage Intersecting Nano, Heat, and Energy: Professor Gang Chen’s Scientific Contributions
Cooper, T., Gao, J., Lee, S., Liao, B., Liu, W., Lorenzi, B., Luo, T., Miljkovic, N., Reddy, P., Shen, S., et al. (2025) · ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · doi:10.1115/1.4067820
Effect of nano-heaters distribution on the thermal conductivity of silicon films
Liu, H., Liu, Y., Zhang, C., Wang, Y., & Wu, N. (2025) · International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2025.128049
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
Transition from population- to coherence-dominated nondiffusive thermal transport
Kremeyer, L., Siwick, B. J., & Huberman, S. (2026) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/rcws-tjy7
Role of ballistic electron transport effects on thermoelectric performance
Zhu, Q., & Maassen, J. (2025) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/gpc6-1zhn
Stability of the reconstruction of the heat reflection coefficient in the phonon transport equation
Chen, P., Gamba, I. M., Li, Q., & Nair, A. (2026) · Kinetic and Related Models · doi:10.3934/krm.2026021
Light propagation and heat conduction across multilayered structures in pump-probe thermoreflectance
Guo, X., Yang, H., Yao, Y., Liu, T., Yang, R., & Qian, X. (2026) · Materials Today Physics · doi:10.1016/j.mtphys.2026.102018 · Cited by 1
Effective Phonon Mean Free Paths for Thermal Modeling of Modern Semiconductors
Zhou, H., Tiwari, J., Xu, Q., Islam, M. F. R. J., Abedien, T., & Feng, T. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices · doi:10.1109/ted.2026.3665170
Seeking for non-Fourier heat transfer with thermoreflectance
Zenji, A. (2022) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/9667875bz39edz4748z8b49z2f92f27c680a
High-order perturbation expansion of hydrodynamic phonon theory
Tur-Prats, J., Beardo, A., Sendra, L., Díaz-Serrano, A., McBennett, B., Knobloch, J. L., Camacho, J., & Álvarez, F. X. (2026) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/15lt-874w
Shen, N., Wen, J., & Liang, X. M. (2026) · Applied Physics Letters · doi:10.1063/5.0348447
Nonuniform Thermal Conductivity in Nanoscale Multiple Hotspot Systems
He, Y., Zhou, Z., Liu, S., Lü, J., Yang, L., & Yang, N. (2026) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/g549-tkdc
Hutchinson, T. M., McGuire, C. P., Ocampo, I. K., Eggert, J. H., Davis, C., Galtier, E. C., Khaghani, D., Boiadjieva, N. A., Ofori-Okai, B. K., Lee, S. X., et al. (2026) · Review of Scientific Instruments · doi:10.1063/5.0324350
Anonymous, Liu, W., Guo, Y., & Yi, H.-L. (2026) · Physical review. B./Physical review. B · doi:10.1103/w75t-4cz7
Mclean, H., Davies, F. H., Taylor, N. T., & Hepplestone, S. P. (2026) · MRS Communications · doi:10.1557/s43579-026-01059-x
Metadata
- Authors
- Johnson, J. A., Maznev, A. A., Cuffe, J., Eliason, J. K., Minnich, A. J., Kehoe, T., Torres, C. M. S., Chen, G., & Nelson, K. A.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- University College Cork (IE)
- Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ES)
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2013-01-08
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 025901-025901
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W2161591557
- Cited by
- 421
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 46 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 16
- FWCI
- 18.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physical Review Letters (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Cork Open Research Archive (University College Cork, Ireland) (submittedVersion)
- DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- APS
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Thermal properties of materials
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Thermoelastic and Magnetoelastic Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Thermography and Photoacoustic Techniques
- Keywords
- ballistic thermal transport, low-frequency phonons, phonon mean free path, silicon, thermal conductivity, thermal grating, silicon membranes
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
