Intrinsic localized mode and low thermal conductivity of PbSe

Lead chalcogenides such as PbS, PbSe, and PbTe are of interest for their exceptional thermoelectric properties and strongly anharmonic lattice dynamics. Although PbTe has received the most attention, PbSe has a lower thermal conductivity and a nonlinear temperature dependence of thermal resistivity despite being stiffer, trends that prior first-principles calculations have not fully reproduced. Here, we use ab initio calculations that explicitly account for strong anharmonicity and a computationally efficient stochastic phase-space sampling scheme to identify the origin of this low thermal conductivity as an anomalously large anharmonic interaction, exceeding in strength that in PbTe, between the transverse optic and longitudinal acoustic branches. The strong anharmonicity is reflected in the striking observation of an intrinsic localized mode that forms in the acoustic frequencies. Our work shows the deep insights into thermal phonons that can be obtained from ab initio calculations that do not rely on perturbations from the ground-state phonon dispersion.