Theory and modeling of electro-thermal transport in nanoscale materials and devices

半导体电子塑造了我们的世界。设备尺寸的缩小使这成为可能，这不仅带来了巨大的技术挑战，也提出了许多基本问题。随着时间的推移，人们对纳米级电子传输的深刻理解已经得到了发展，同时也有了精确捕捉相关物理现象的计算工具。原则上，电子传递不能与声子（热）传递分开。耦合电子-声子输运的物理特性导致纳米级器件的自热，这严重限制了它们的性能和可靠性，并为纳米结构中增强热电能量转换提供了一条途径。这些和其他挑战对能源和21世纪的电子产品有着深远的影响。进一步的进展将需要对纳米尺度的热输运有更深入的了解，同时需要开发新的计算工具来平等地对待电子和声子，解决从纳米到宏观尺度的挑战，并与预测第一原理材料建模紧密相关。

Semiconductor electronics has shaped our world. The downscaling of device dimensions that made this possible not only presented enormous technological challenges, it also raised many fundamental questions. Over time a deep understanding of electron transport at the nanoscale has been developed, along with the computational tools to accurately capture the relevant physics. Electron transport cannot, in principle, be separated from phonon (thermal) transport. The physics of coupled electron-phonon transport is responsible for self-heating in nanoscale devices, which critically limits their performance and reliability, and for providing a route for enhanced thermoelectric energy conversion in nanostructures. These and other challenges have far-reaching implications for energy and 21st century electronics. Further progress will require a deeper understanding of thermal transport at the nanoscale, along with the development of new computational tools that treat electrons and phonons on equal footing, address challenges from the nano- to macro-scale, and that are tightly connected to predictive first principles materials modeling.