Thermal conductivity suppression in uranium-doped thorium dioxide due to phonon-spin interactions

In this work, impact of low level of uranium (U) atom substitution on thermal conductivity of thorium dioxide (ThO₂) is investigated. ThO₂ is an electronic insulator with a wide optical band-gap and no unpaired electrons whose thermal transport is governed by phonons. U-substitution introduces unpaired f-electrons resulting in paramagnetic behavior of U[sbnd]ThO₂ at room temperature, which significantly suppresses its thermal conductivity. A single crystal of U[sbnd]ThO₂ with graded composition of U is grown using a hydrothermal synthesis method, and thermal conductivity measurements are performed in regions with uniform composition of U at levels of 0%, 6%, 9% and 16%. Measured thermal conductivity profiles over 77–300 K temperature range are analyzed using an analytical expression for phonon-mediated thermal transport based on Klemens-Callaway model. Temperature dependent thermal conductivity is found to deviate significantly from the Rayleigh scattering trend expected for a simple substitutional point defect with a small perturbation to mass and interatomic forces. With the resonant scattering term, observed large suppression of thermal conductivity at low temperatures can be closely reproduced. Additionally, the extracted phonon-spin coupling constants imply a nonlinear relation of phonon-spin interaction intensity with respect to U doping percentage. Our study reveals how phonon-spin scattering contributed by unpaired f-electrons in U atoms influences thermal transport in the U[sbnd]ThO₂ system.