Phonon Hydrodynamic Heat Conduction and Knudsen Minimum in Graphite

In the hydrodynamic regime, phonons drift with a nonzero collective velocity under a temperature gradient, reminiscent of viscous gas and fluid flow. The study of hydrodynamic phonon transport has spanned over half a century but has been mostly limited to cryogenic temperatures (∼1 K) and more recently to low-dimensional materials. Here, we identify graphite as a three-dimensional material that supports phonon hydrodynamics at significantly higher temperatures (∼100 K) based on first-principles calculations. In particular, by solving the Boltzmann equation for phonon transport in graphite ribbons, we predict that phonon Poiseuille flow and Knudsen minimum can be experimentally observed above liquid nitrogen temperature. Further, we reveal the microscopic origin of these intriguing phenomena in terms of the dependence of the effective boundary scattering rate on momentum-conserving phonon–phonon scattering processes and the collective motion of phonons. The significant hydrodynamic nature of phonon transport in graphite is attributed to its strong intralayer sp² hybrid bonding and weak van der Waals interlayer interactions. More intriguingly, the reflection symmetry associated with a single graphene layer is broken in graphite, which opens up more momentum-conserving phonon–phonon scattering channels and results in stronger hydrodynamic features in graphite than graphene. As a boundary-sensitive transport regime, phonon hydrodynamics opens up new possibilities for thermal management and energy conversion.