A team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other institutions used cutting-edge electron microscopes and novel techniques, to discover a way to map phonons—vibrations in crystal lattices—in atomic resolution, enabling deeper understanding of the way heat travels through quantum dots, engineered nanostructures in electronic components. … “We developed a novel technique to differentially map phonon momenta with atomic resolution, which enables us to observe nonequilibrium phonons that only exist near the interface,” said co-author Xiaoqing Pan, UCI professor of materials science and engineering and physics, Henry Samueli Endowed Chair in Engineering, and IMRI director. Read More