Highly selective phonon diffusive scattering in superionic layered AgCrSe2

Abstract Superionic materials that exhibit coexistence of rigid crystalline lattices and liquid-like fluctuating substructures have emerged as promising thermoelectric materials. The inadequate understanding of the phonon behavior in the superionic state, however, still prevents further revealing of the underlying correlation between the thermally induced liquid-like atomic dynamics and anomalous thermal transport properties. Herein, by adopting a hybrid scheme to directly characterize anharmonic phonon quasiparticles from ab-initio molecular dynamics, we manifest that low-energy transverse phonons dominated by Ag atoms totally collapse, whereas longitudinal optical phonons remain largely intact during the superionic transition. The ultralow thermal conductivity originates from the atomic level structural heterogeneity can be ultimately attributed to diffusive phonon dynamics. Our study also reveals that the extremely large selective phonon diffusive scattering can be counteracted by hydrostatic pressure induced deactivation of the liquid-like flow of Ag atoms. These results demonstrate the decisive role of ion superionicity in phonon scattering across superionic transition and may pave the way for new phonon engineering strategies in related superionic materials.