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This paper studies thermal transport in nanoporous silicon with a significant specific surface area. First, the equilibrium molecular dynamics approach was used to obtain the dependence of thermal conductivity on a specific surface area. Then, a modified phonon transport kinetic theory-based approach was developed to analyze thermal conductivity. Two models were used to evaluate the phonon mean free path in the porous materials. The first model assumes that the dependence of the mean free path only relies on the specific surface area, and the second one also considers the mean free path variation with the porosity. Both approaches approximate molecular dynamics data well for the smaller porosity values. However, the first model fails for highly porous matrixes, while the second one matches well with molecular dynamics simulations across all considered ranges of the porosities. This work illustrates that the phonon mean free path dependence with the porosity/volume fraction of composite materials is essential for describing thermal transport in systems with significant surface-to-volume ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence for an excellent compromise between structural stability and low thermal conductivity has been achieved with tilted Bi2Te3 nanowires. The latter ones were recently fabricated and there is a need in modeling and characterization. The structural stability and the thermal conductivity of Bi2Te3 nanowires along the tilted [015]* direction and along the [010] direction have been explored. For the two configurations of nanowires, the effect of the length and the cross section on the thermal conductivity is discussed. The thermal conductivity of infinite size tilted nanowire is 0.34W/m K, significantly reduced compared to nanowire along the [010] direction (0.59W/m K). This reveals that in Bi2Te3 nanowires the structural anisotropy can be as important as size effects to reduce the thermal conductivity. The main reason is the reduction of the phonon mean free path which is found to be 1.7 nm in the tilted nanowires, compared to 5.3nm for the nanowires along the [010] direction. The fact that tilted Bi2Te3 nanowire is mechanically stable and it has extremely low thermal conductivity suggests these nanowires as a promising material for future thermoelectric generation application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]