The lattice thermal conductivity of crystalline Si nanowires is calculated. The calculation uses complete phonon dispersions, and does not require any externally imposed frequency cutoffs. No adjustment to nanowire thermal conductivity measurements is required. Good agreement with experimental results for nanowires wider than 35 nm is obtained. A formulation in terms of the transmission function is given. Also, the use of a simpler, nondispersive “Callaway formula,” is discussed from the complete dispersions perspective.

• Received 25 March 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.68.113308