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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vasudeva, Keshav, Huberman, Samuel, Wylie, Angus P. C., Rae, Maxwell, Demiane, Joey, Haibeh, Jamal A., Botica-Artalejo, Elena, Woller, Kevin B., Short, Michael P., Ferry, Sara E.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23247
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Table of Contents:
  • Pump-probe optical methods like transient grating spectroscopy (TGS) enable rapid, nondestructive thermoelastic property measurements. But, in phonon-dominated ceramics, they can underpredict bulk thermal diffusivity when long mean free path (MFP) phonons do not equilibrate over experimental length scales. We combine in situ TGS with Si4+ ion irradiation of CVD 3C-SiC (300 and 550C, 0.5-1 dpa) and density functional theory informed Boltzmann transport equation solutions to understand the origins of this offset. We show how the discrepancy between laser flash analysis (LFA) and TGS-measured thermal diffusivity varies with grain-boundary density, temperature, and defect concentration. We introduce a dimensionless suppression factor that accounts for this discrepancy and demonstrate its utility by using it to show an agreement between the thermal defect resistance of neutron irradiated 3C-SiC (measured using LFA) and ion irradiated 3C-SiC (measured using TGS). This theory-informed experimental framework enables quantitative, in situ tracking of ion irradiation damage induced thermal transport degradation in ceramics.