Mapping the effects of crystal defects
New research offers insights into how crystal dislocations — a common type of defect in materials — can affect electrical and heat transport through crystals, at a microscopic, quantum mechanical level. Dislocations in crystals are places where the orderly three-dimensional structure of a crystal lattice — whose arrangement of atoms repeats with exactly the same spacing — is disrupted. The effect is as if a knife had sliced through the crystal and then the pieces were stuck back together, askew from their original positions. These defects have a strong effect on phonons, the modes of lattice vibration that play a role in the thermal and electrical properties of the crystals through which they travel. But a precise understanding of the mechanism of the dislocation-phonon interaction has been elusive and controversial, which has slowed progress toward using dislocations to tailor the thermal properties of materials. A team at MIT has been able to...