Thermal conductivity accumulation in amorphous silica and amorphous silicon

<p>We predict the properties of the propagating and nonpropagating vibrational modes in amorphous silica (a-SiO2) and amorphous silicon (a-Si) and, from them, thermal conductivity accumulation functions. The calculations are performed using molecular dynamics simulations, lattice dynamics calculations, and theoretical models. For a-SiO2, the propagating modes contribute negligibly to thermal conductivity (6%), in agreement with the thermal conductivity accumulation measured by Regner <em>et al.</em> [<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2630">Nat. Commun. 4, 1640 (2013)</a>]. For a-Si, propagating modes with mean-free paths up to 1 μm contribute 40% of the total thermal conductivity. The predicted contribution to thermal conductivity from nonpropagating modes and the total thermal conductivity for a-Si are in agreement with the measurements of Regner <em>et al.</em>The accumulation in the measurements, however, takes place over a narrower band of mean-free paths (100 nm–1 μm) than that predicted (10 nm–1 μm).