Heat transport in dielectric solids with diamond structure

Through an iteration procedure the phonon transport equation is solved for solids with diamond structure. The interaction between nearest and next-nearest neighbours is expressed in terms of a pair potential by which an accurate description of the phonon spectrum and of the anharmonic properties of the crystal is obtained. In this way the role of the various scattering mechanisms contributing to thermal resistance can be investigated without the use of the continuum approximation or of the relaxation time approximation for phonon-phonon interaction. The theory is applied to Ge and Si, for which the predicted temperature behaviour of thermal conductivity is found in excellent agreement with experiment.