The piece details our recently published framework, which establishes quantitative links between structural disorder and macroscopic vibrational and thermal properties for materials ranging from perfect crystals to amorphous glasses. The article further explores how the framework solves the 76-year-old problem posed by physicist Charles Kittel in 1949, to determine the connection between atomic structure of materials and “obstacles” that scatter atomic vibrations and limit thermal transport. We are grateful for acknowledgement from APS Physics, whose article we include below.
APS Physics feature article: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v19/8
Open-access research article: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/w4p6-b9mp