A novel heat transfer model and its application to information storage systems

Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) based on Boltzmann transport equation is developed to simulate the nanoscale heat transport in solids. The LBM can simulate both the metals and semiconductors by properly incorporating the energy carriers. We found that boundary scattering of phonons results in an anisotropic thermal transport in nanoscale solids. The electron-phonon coupling is introduced to accurately describe the thermal behavior of nanoscale confined solids. Our numerical tool will be suitable for simulating complex multiscale systems involving multiple energy carriers with different length and time scales, and is useful in magnetic recording technology when the thermal response plays a crucial role such as for reliability of the head-disk interface and the heat assisted magnetic recording systems. (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics.