Measurement of vibrational spectra in high-thermal-conductivity ceramics

In high-voltage electronics, heat dissipation is a major challenge. Ideally the materials in these devices will have a high thermal conductivity; a property determined by vibrations in the material. In order to improve understanding of these materials and develop better alternatives, it is helpful to have a good theoretical model of these vibrations: available approaches include force-fields, tight-binding and density-functional theory. These simulations may be compared to and calibrated against spectra from vibrational spectroscopy. We propose temperature-dependent measurements of the momentum-dependent vibrational spectra of SiC (an established material) and Ga2O3 (an emerging material) using MAPS, in order to verify and improve simulations of the dynamics in these systems. This is linked to development of the Abins software for simulated INS to support direct-geometry experiments.