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Reduced Thermal Conductivity of Nanowires and Nanoribbons with Dynamically Rough Surfaces and the "Problem of One-Dimensional Heat Conductors"

We present analytical model and molecular dynamics simulations of phonon heat transport in nanowires and nanoribbons with anharmonic lattices and dynamically rough surfaces and edges. In agreement with recent experiments on heat transport in single-crystalline silicon nanowires with rough surfaces, our model and simulations predict finite and length-independent phonon thermal conductivity in such quasi-one-dimensional systems, in contrast to anomalous phonon thermal conductivity of corresponding momentum-conserving systems with atomically smooth surfaces, divergent with the system length. Within our model, the main cause of thermal conductivity reduction is momentum-nonconserving scattering of longitudinal acoustic phonons by anharmonic side phonon leads in quasi-one-dimensional phonon waveguide with dynamically rough surface or edge layers.