“Controlling the flow of heat through semiconductor materials is an important challenge in developing smaller and faster computer chips, high-performance solar panels, and better lasers and biomedical devices. For the first time, an international team of scientists led by a researcher at the University of California, Riverside has modified the energy spectrum of acoustic phonons elemental excitations, also referred to as quasi-particles, that spread heat through crystalline materials like a wave by confining them to nanometer-scale semiconductor structures. The results have important implications in the thermal management of electronic devices.”