Longitudinal Phonon Research Articles

Softening of a flat phonon mode in the kagome ScV6Sn6

Geometrically frustrated kagome lattices are raising as novel platforms to engineer correlated topological electron flat bands that are prominent to electronic instabilities. Here, we demonstrate a phonon softening at the kz = π plane in ScV6Sn6. The low energy longitudinal phonon collapses at ~98 K and q = frac{1}{3}frac{1}{3}frac{1}{2} due to the electron-phonon interaction, without the emergence of long-range charge order which sets in at a different propagation vector qCDW = frac{1}{3}frac{1}{3}frac{1}{3}. Theoretical calculations corroborate the experimental finding to indicate that the leading instability is located at frac{1}{3}frac{1}{3}frac{1}{2} of a rather flat mode. We relate the phonon renormalization to the orbital-resolved susceptibility of the trigonal Sn atoms and explain the approximately flat phonon dispersion. Our data report the first example of the collapse of a kagome bosonic mode and promote the 166 compounds of kagomes as primary candidates to explore correlated flat phonon-topological flat electron physics.

Identification by inelastic X-ray scattering of bulk alteration of solid dynamics due to liquid wetting

We examine the influence at room temperature of the deposit of a water layer on the phonon dynamics of a solid. It is shown that the water wetting at the surface of an Alumina monocrystal has deep effects on acoustic phonons, propagating over several hundred µm distance and taking place on a relatively long time scale. The effect of the wetting at the boundary is two-fold: a hardening of both transverse and longitudinal acoustic phonons is observed as well as a relaxation of internal stresses. These acoustic phonon energy changes were observed by inelastic X-ray scattering up to 40 meV energy loss, allowing us to probe the solid at different depths from the surface.

Optical and acoustic phonons in turbostratic and cubic boron nitride thin films on diamond substrates

We report an investigation of the bulk optical, bulk acoustic, and surface acoustic phonons in thin films of turbostratic boron nitride (t-BN) and cubic boron nitride (c-BN) grown on B-doped polycrystalline and single-crystalline diamond (001) and (111) substrates. The characteristics of different types of phonons were studied using Raman and Brillouin-Mandelstam light scattering spectroscopies. The atomic structure of the films was determined using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and correlated with the Raman and Brillouin-Mandelstam spectroscopy data. The HRTEM analysis revealed that the cubic boron nitride thin films consisted of a mixture of c-BN and t-BN phases, with c-BN being the dominant phase. It was found that while visible Raman spectroscopy provided information for characterizing the t-BN phase, it faced challenges in differentiating the c-BN phase either due to the presence of high-density defects or the overlapping of the Raman features with those from the B-doped diamond substrates. In contrast, Brillouin-Mandelstam spectroscopy clearly distinguishes the bulk longitudinal and surface acoustic phonons of the c-BN thin films grown on diamond substrates. Additionally, the angle-dependent surface Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering data show the peaks associated with the Rayleigh surface acoustic waves, which have higher phase velocities in c-BN films on diamond (111) substrates. These findings provide valuable insights into the phonon characteristics of the c-BN and diamond interfaces and have important implications for the thermal management of electronic devices based on ultra-wide-band-gap materials.

A possible origin of the very fast sound in terahertz region in liquid benzene

Previously reported inelastic X-ray scattering spectra of molecular liquid benzene were reanalyzed by a generalized Langevin formalism (GLF) with a memory function including a thermal and two viscoelastic relaxation processes. A new algorithm was containing a simple sparse modeling to smooth Q dependences of dynamical parameters used in the present GLF analysis. The obtained excitation energies of longitudinal acoustic phonons show a largely positive deviation from the hydrodynamic value by about 50%, the same as that by previous analysis and similar to existing results of several molecular liquids. Such a large deviation of dynamical sound velocity in liquid benzene is interpreted as extra energy-losses for terahertz phonons by vibrational and rotational motions of benzene molecules. The rates of the fast and slow viscoelastic relaxations in the memory function at low Q are undetectable and 0.4-0.8 ps, respectively. These can be explained by the vibrational and anisotropic rotational motions of benzene molecules. The microscopic kinematic longitudinal viscosity rapidly decreases with Q from a reasonable macroscopic value.

Laser-induced coherent longitudinal acoustics phonons in thin films observed by ultrafast optical reflectivity and ultrafast x-ray diffraction

Femtosecond laser excitation of crystal materials can produce coherent longitudinal acoustic phonons (CLAPs), which possess the capability to interact with various quasiparticles and influence their dynamics. The manipulation of CLAPs' behavior is thus of significant interest for potential applications, particularly in achieving ultrafast modulations of material properties. In this study, we present our findings on the propagation of laser-induced CLAPs at thin-film interfaces and heterojunctions using ultrafast optical reflectivity and ultrafast x-ray diffraction measurements. We observe that CLAPs can efficiently propagate from a LaMnO3 thin-film to its SrTiO3 substrate due to the matching of their acoustic impedance, and the oscillation period increases from 54 to 105 GHz. In contrast, in ultrafast x-ray diffraction experiments, we discover that CLAPs are partially confined within an Au (111) thin film due to the mismatch of acoustic impedance with the substrates, leading to an oscillation period of 122 ps. However, interestingly, when examining La0.7Ca0.175Sr0.125MnO3/Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 bilayers, no oscillations are observed due to the favorable impedance matching between the layers. Our findings demonstrate that acoustic impedance can serve as an effective means to control coherent phonons in nanometer-thin films and may also play a crucial role in phonon engineering at interfaces or heterostructures.

Addressing the Impact of Surface Roughness on Epsilon-Near-Zero Silicon Carbide Substrates.

Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) media have been very actively investigated due to their unconventional wave phenomena and strengthened nonlinear response. However, the technological impact of ENZ media will be determined by the quality of realistic ENZ materials, including material loss and surface roughness. Here, we provide a comprehensive experimental study of the impact of surface roughness on ENZ substrates. Using silicon carbide (SiC) substrates with artificially induced roughness, we analyze samples whose roughness ranges from a few to hundreds of nanometer size scales. It is concluded that ENZ substrates with roughness in the few nanometer scale are negatively affected by coupling to longitudinal phonons and strong ENZ fields normal to the surface. On the other hand, when the roughness is in the hundreds of nanometers scale, the ENZ band is found to be more robust than dielectric and surface phonon polariton (SPhP) bands.

Coherent-Phonon-Driven Intervalley Scattering and Rabi Oscillation in Multivalley 2D Materials.

Resolving the complete electron scattering dynamics mediated by coherent phonons is crucial for understanding electron-phonon couplings beyond equilibrium. Here we present a time-resolved theoretical investigation on strongly coupled ultrafast electron and phonon dynamics in monolayer WSe_{2}, with a focus on the intervalley scattering from the optically "bright" K state to "dark" Q state. We find that the strong coherent lattice vibration along the longitudinal acoustic phonon mode [LA(M)] can drastically promote K-to-Q transition on a timescale of ∼400 fs, comparable with previous experimental observation on thermal-phonon-mediated electron dynamics. Further, this coherent-phonon-driven intervalley scattering occurs in an unconventional steplike manner and further induces an electronic Rabi oscillation. By constructing a two-level model and quantitatively comparing with abinitio dynamic simulations, we uncover the critical role of nonadiabatic coupling effects. Finally, a new strategy is proposed to effectively tune the intervalley scattering rates by varying the coherent phonon amplitude, which could be realized via light-induced nonlinear phononics that we hope will spark experimental investigation.

Detection of two-dimensional small polarons at oxide interfaces by optical spectroscopy

Two-dimensional (2D) perovskite oxide interfaces are ideal systems to uncover diverse emergent properties, such as the arising polaronic properties from short-range charge–lattice interactions. Thus, a technique to detect this quasiparticle phenomenon at the buried interface is highly coveted. Here, we report the observation of 2D small-polarons at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 conducting interface using high-resolution spectroscopic ellipsometry. First-principles investigations show that interfacial electron–lattice coupling mediated by the longitudinal phonon mode facilitates the formation of these polarons. This study resolves the long-standing question by attributing the formation of interfacial 2D small polarons to the significant mismatch between experimentally measured interfacial carrier density and theoretical values. Our study sheds light on the complexity of broken periodic lattice-induced quasi-particle effects and its relationship with exotic phenomena at complex oxide interfaces. Meanwhile, this work establishes spectroscopic ellipsometry as a useful technique to detect and locate optical evidence of polaronic states and other emerging quantum properties at the buried interface.

Two-photon excitation with finite pulses unlocks pure dephasing-induced degradation of entangled photons emitted by quantum dots

Semiconductor quantum dots have emerged as an especially promising platform for the generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs. However, it was demonstrated recently that the two-photon excitation scheme employed in state-of-the-art experiments limits the achievable degree of entanglement by introducing which-path information. In this work, the combined impact of two-photon excitation and longitudinal acoustic phonons on photon pairs emitted by strongly-confining quantum dots is investigated. It is found that phonons further reduce the achievable degree of entanglement even in the limit of vanishing temperature due to phonon-induced pure dephasing and phonon-assisted one-photon processes, which increase the reexcitation probability. In addition, the degree of entanglement, as measured by the concurrence, decreases with rising temperature and/or pulse duration, even if the excitonic fine-structure splitting is absent and when higher electronic states are out of reach. Furthermore, in the case of finite fine-structure splittings, phonons enlarge the discrepancy in concurrence for different laser polarizations.

Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering of the Smallest Carbon Nanowires Made of Long Linear Carbon Chains Inserted inside Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The smallest carbon nanowires, i.e., single-walled carbon nanowires (SWCNWs, LLCCs@SWCNTs) made of long linear carbon chains (LLCCs, sp) inserted inside single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs, sp2), were successfully mass produced recently, making the refined strong Stokes Raman characterization of LLCCs@SWCNTs possible. This work reports the observation of anti-Stokes Raman scattering of LLCCs@SWCNTs with normal Raman spectroscopy, and their Stokes and anti-Stokes Raman scattering at a wide temperature range of 80–850 K has been systematically studied. It was found that the normalized intensity of L-band at 1835 cm–1 of LLCCs@SWCNTs decreased as the temperature increased, which obeys a quadratic polynomial fitting for Stokes and cubic fitting for anti-Stokes peaks. The absolute intensity of Stokes peaks decreased and that of anti-Stokes increased with the increasing temperature. Meanwhile, a softening of Stokes and anti-Stokes peaks was observed as the temperature increased. Furthermore, both the high-energy longitudinal phonon (G+) of SWCNTs hosting LLCCs and the L-band originating from LLCCs inside SWCNTs exhibit a quasi-linear variation with temperature, having temperature coefficients of −0.0192 and −0.0296 cm–1·K–1 for Stokes and 0.0200 and 0.0334 cm–1·K–1 for anti-Stokes, respectively. The linear temperature dependence of peak positions of L-band implies that the crystal, vibrational, and electronic structures of LLCCs inside SWCNTs can be easily tuned via the temperature. This work paves the way for studying the mechanism of Raman process and fundamental properties of both LLCCs/carbyne and SWCNWs (LLCCs@SWCNTs), as well as their potential applications in nanoscale temperature monitoring.

Anisotropic Phonon Bands in H-Bonded Molecular Crystals: The Instructive Case of α-Quinacridone

Phonons play a crucial role in the thermodynamic and transport properties of solid materials. Nevertheless, rather little is known about phonons in organic semiconductors. Thus, we employ highly reliable quantum mechanical calculations for studying the phonons in the α-polymorph of quinacridone. This material is particularly interesting, as it has highly anisotropic properties with distinctly different bonding types (H-bonding, π-stacking, and dispersion interactions) in different spatial directions. By calculating the overlaps of modes in molecular quinacridone and the α-polymorph, we associate Γ-point phonons with molecular vibrations to get a first impression of the impact of the crystalline environment. The situation becomes considerably more complex when analyzing phonons in the entire 1st Brillouin zone, where, due to the low symmetry of α-quinacridone, a multitude of avoided band crossings occur. At these, the character of the phonon modes typically switches, as can be inferred from mode participation ratios and mode longitudinalities. Notably, avoided crossings are observed not only as a function of the length but also as a function of the direction of the phonon wave vector. Analyzing these avoided crossings reveals how it is possible that the highest frequency acoustic band is always the one with the largest longitudinality, although longitudinal phonons in different crystalline directions are characterized by fundamentally different molecular displacements. The multiple avoided crossings also give rise to a particularly complex angular dependence of the group velocities, but combining the insights from the various studied quantities still allows drawing general conclusions, e.g., on the relative energetics of longitudinal vs transverse deformations (i.e., compressions and expansions vs slips of neighboring molecules). They also reveal how phonon transport in α-quinacridone is impacted by the reinforcing H-bonds and by π-stacking interactions (resulting from a complex superposition of van der Waals, charge penetration, and exchange repulsion).

Observation of fast sound in two-dimensional dusty plasma liquids.

Equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study two-dimensional (2D) dusty plasma liquids. Based on the stochastic thermal motion of simulated particles, the longitudinal and transverse phonon spectra are calculated, and used to determine the corresponding dispersion relations. From there, the longitudinal and transverse sound speeds of 2D dusty plasma liquids are obtained. It is discovered that, for wavenumbers beyond the hydrodynamic regime, the longitudinal sound speed of a 2D dusty plasma liquid exceeds its adiabatic value, i.e., the so-called fast sound. This phenomenon appears at roughly the same length scale of the cutoff wavenumber for transverse waves, confirming its relation to the emergent solidity of liquids in the nonhydrodynamic regime. Using the thermodynamic and transport coefficients extracted from the previous studies, and relying on the Frenkel theory, the ratio of the longitudinal to the adiabatic sound speeds is derived analytically, providing the optimal conditions for fast sound, which are in quantitative agreement with the current simulation results.

Effects of nonlinearity and a new nonlinear resonance in two-path phonon transmittance in lattices with two-dimensional arrays of atomic defects.

The paper is devoted to analytical and numerical studies of the effects of nonlinearity on the two-path phonon interference in the transmission through two-dimensional arrays of atomic defects embedded in a lattice. The emergence of transmission antiresonance (transmission node) in the two-path system is demonstrated for the few-particle nanostructures, which allow us to model both linear and nonlinear phonon transmission antiresonances. The universality of destructive-interference origin of transmission antiresonances of waves of different nature, such as phonons, photons, and electrons, in two-path nanostructures and metamaterials is emphasized. Generation of the higher harmonics as a result of the interaction of lattice waves with nonlinear two-path atomic defects is considered, and the full system of nonlinear algebraic equationsis obtained to describe the transmission through nonlinear two-path atomic defects with an account for the generation of second and third harmonics. Expressions for the coefficients of lattice energy transmission through and reflection from the embedded nonlinear atomic systems are derived. It is shown that the quartic interatomic nonlinearity shifts the antiresonance frequency in the direction determined by the sign of the nonlinear coefficient and enhances in general the transmission of high-frequency phonons due to third harmonic generation and propagation. The effects of the quartic nonlinearity on phonon transmission are described for the two-path atomic defects with a different topology. Transmission through the nonlinear two-path atomic defects is also modeled with the simulation of the phonon wave packet, for which the proper amplitude normalization is proposed and implemented. It is shown that the cubic interatomic nonlinearity red shifts in general the antiresonance frequency for longitudinal phonons independently of the sign of the nonlinear coefficient, and the equilibrium interatomic distances (bond lengths) in the atomic defects are changed by the incident phonon due to cubic interatomic nonlinearity. For longitudinal phonons incident on a system with the cubic nonlinearity, the new narrow transmission resonance on the background of a broad antiresonance is predicted to emerge, which we relate to the opening of the additional transmission channel for the phonon second harmonic through the nonlinear defect atoms. Conditions of the existence of the new nonlinear transmission resonance are determined and demonstrated for different two-path nonlinear atomic defects. A two-dimensional array of embedded three-path defects with an additional weak transmission channel, in which a linear analog of the nonlinear narrow transmission resonance on the background of a broad antiresonance is realized, is proposed and modeled. The presented results provide better understanding and detailed description of the interplay between the interference and nonlinearity in phonon propagation through and scattering in two-dimensional arrays of two-path anharmonic atomic defects with a different topology.

Electrical generation of surface phonon polaritons

Abstract Efficient electrical generation of mid-infrared light is challenging because of the dearth of materials with natural dipole-active electronic transitions in this spectral region. One approach to solve this problem is through quantum-engineering of the electron dispersion to create artificial transitions, as in quantum cascade devices. In this work we propose an alternative method to generate mid-infrared light, utilizing the coupling between longitudinal and transverse degrees of freedom due to the nonlocal optical response of nanoscopic polar dielectric crystals. Polar crystals support sub-diffraction photonic modes in the mid-infrared. They also support longitudinal phonons, which couple efficiently with electrical currents through the Fröhlich interaction. As we have shown in previous theoretical and experimental works, these two degrees of freedom can hybridize forming longitudinal-transverse polaritons. Here we theoretically demonstrate that longitudinal-transverse polaritons can be efficiently generated by electrical currents, leading to resonant narrowband photonic emission. This approach can therefore be utilised to electrically generate far-field mid-infrared photons in the absence of dipole-active electronic transitions, potentially underpinning a novel generation of mid-infrared optoelectronic devices.

Study of the Effects of Er Doping on the Physical Properties of CdSe Thin Films

Erbium-doped cadmium selenide thin films grown on 7059 Corning glass by means of a chemical bath at 80 °C were prepared. Doping was performed by adding an aqueous Er(NO3)33·H2O dilution to the CdSe growth solution. The volume of Er doping solution was varied to obtain different Er concentration (x at%). Thus, in the Cd1−xErxSe samples, the x values obtained were in the 0.0–7.8 at% interval. The set of the CdSe:Er thin films synthesized in the hexagonal wurtzite (WZ) crystalline phase are characterized by lattice parameters (a and c) that increase until x = 2.4% and that subsequently decrease as the concentration of x increases. Therefore, in the primitive unit cell volume (UC), the same effect was observed. Physical parameters such as nanocrystal size, direct band gap (Eg), and optical longitudinal vibrational phonon on the other hand, shift in an opposite way to that of UC as a function of x. All the samples exhibit photoluminescence (PL) emission which consists of a single broad band in the 1.3 ≤ hν ≤ 2.5 eV range (954 ≥ λ ≥ 496 nm), where the maximum of the PL-band shift depends on x in the same way as the former parameters. The PL band intensity shows a singular behavior since it increases as x augments but exhibits a strong decreasing trend in the intermediate region of the x range. Dark d.c. conductivity experiences a high increase with the lower x value, however, it gradually decreases as x increases, which suggests that the Er3+ ions are not only located in Cd2+ sites, but also in interstitial sites and at the surface. Different physical properties are correlated among them and discussed considering information from similar reports in the literature.

Contactless characterization of the elastic properties of glass microspheres

Glass microspheres are of great interest for numerous industrial, biomedical, or standalone applications, but it remains challenging to evaluate their elastic and optical properties in a non-destructive way. In this work, we address this issue by using two complementary contactless techniques to obtain elastic and optical constants of glass microspheres with diameters ranging from 10 to 60 µm. The first technique we employ is Brillouin Light Scattering, which yields scattering with longitudinal acoustic phonons, the frequency of which is found to be 5% lower than that measured in the bulk material. The second technique involves exciting the optical whispering gallery modes of the microspheres, which allows us to transduce some of their vibrational modes. The combined data allow for extracting the refractive index and the elastic constants of the material. Our findings indicate that the values of those properties are reduced with respect to their bulk material counterpart due to an effective decrease of the density, resulting from the fabrication process. We propose the use of this combined method to extract elastic and optical parameters of glass materials in microsphere geometries and compare them with the values of the pristine material from which they are formed.

Effect of spin-orbit coupling on the zero-point renormalization of the electronic band gap in cubic materials: First-principles calculations and generalized Fröhlich model

The electronic structure of semiconductors and insulators is affected by ionic motion through electron-phonon interaction, yielding temperature-dependent band gap energies and zero-point renormalization (ZPR) at absolute zero temperature. For polar materials, the most significant contribution to the band gap ZPR can be understood in terms of the Fr\"ohlich model, which focuses on the nonadiabatic interaction between an electron and the macroscopic electrical polarization created by a long-wavelength optical longitudinal phonon mode. On the other hand, spin-orbit interaction (SOC) modifies the bare electronic structure, which will, in turn, affect the electron-phonon interaction and the ZPR. We present a comparative investigation of the effect of SOC on the band gap ZPR of twenty semiconductors and insulators with cubic symmetry using first-principles calculations. We observe a SOC-induced decrease of the ZPR, up to 30%, driven by the valence band edge, which almost entirely originates from the modification of the bare electronic eigenenergies and the decrease of the hole effective masses near the $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ point. We also incorporate SOC into a generalized Fr\"ohlich model, addressing the Dresselhaus splitting which occurs in noncentrosymmetric materials, and confirm that the predominance of nonadiabatic effects on the band gap ZPR of polar materials is unchanged when including SOC. Our generalized Fr\"ohlich model with SOC provides a reliable estimate of the SOC-induced decrease of the polaron formation energy obtained from first principles and brings to light some fundamental subtleties in the numerical evaluation of the effective masses with SOC for noncentrosymmetric materials. We finally warn about a possible breakdown of the parabolic approximation, one of the most fundamental assumptions of the Fr\"ohlich model, within the physically relevant energy range of the Fr\"ohlich interaction for materials with high phonon frequencies treated with SOC.

Phonon coupling versus pure dephasing in the photon statistics of cooperative emitters

Realizing scalable quantum networks requires a meticulous level of understanding and mitigating the deleterious effects of decoherence. Many quantum device platforms feature multiple decoherence mechanisms, often with a dominant mechanism seemingly fully masking others. In this paper, we show how access to weaker dephasing mechanisms can nevertheless be obtained for optically active qubits by performing two-photon coincidence measurements. To this end we theoretically investigate the impact of different decoherence mechanisms on cooperatively emitting quantum dots. Focusing on the typically dominant deformation-potential coupling to longitudinal acoustic phonons and typically much less severe additional sources of pure dephasing, we employ a numerically exact method to show that these mechanisms lead to very different two-photon coincidence signals. Moreover, surprisingly, the impact of the strongly coupled phonon environment is weak and leads to long-lived coherences. We trace this back to the superohmic nature of the deformation-potential coupling causing interemitter coherences to converge to a nonzero value on a short timescale, whereas pure dephasing contributions cause a complete decay of coherence over longer times. Our approach provides a practical means of investigating decoherence processes on different timescales in solid-state emitters, and thus contributes to understanding and possibly eliminating their detrimental influences.

Impact of interfacial compositional diffusion on interfacial phonon scattering and transmission in GaN/AlN heterostructure

Compositional diffusion at interfaces often occurs during the synthesis of heterostructures, which poses a significant challenge to the reliability and performance of heterostructure-based electronic devices. In this study, the effect of interfacial compositional diffusion on the interfacial phonon transport in GaN/AlN heterostructures has been explored using molecular dynamics and phonon dynamics simulations. It is found the compositional diffusion results in a remarkable reduction in the interfacial thermal conductance (ITC) of the heterostructures, which can be modulated by tuning the compositional diffusion thickness. Phonon wave packet simulations further revealed that the energy transmission coefficient across the interface is strongly phonon frequency-dependent and interfacial morphology-dependent, which is consistent well with the calculated ITC of the structures. The phonon mode conversion and phonon localization are observed at the region of interfaces. Furthermore, it is found that the longitudinal acoustic phonons are more sensitive to the compositional diffusion interface than transverse-acoustic phonons do. However, it is interesting to find that the energy transmission coefficients of transverse-acoustic phonons with a high frequency (above 3.6 THz) across the compositional interface are abnormally higher than those across the sharp interface due to the stronger phonon mode conversion in the compositional diffusion region, which provides additional pathways for energy transmission. Our findings provide a deeper insight into the interfacial phonon scattering and transmission under the coupling effect of interfacial morphology and compositional diffusion.

Anharmonic lattice dynamics and the origin of intrinsic ultralow thermal conductivity in AgI materials

Ionic conductors such as AgI with ultralow thermal conductivities $({\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l})$ are of increasing interest because of their excellent thermoelectric properties. However, the origin of their intrinsic low ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l}$ values remain elusive. In this study, comprehensive theoretical calculations of the lattice dynamics and the thermal transport properties of $\ensuremath{\gamma}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$ (zinc-blende structure) and $\ensuremath{\beta}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$ (wurtzite structure) as functions of temperature were carried out based on many-body perturbation theory and phonon Boltzmann transport theory. First, the mean-squared displacements (MSDs) of ${\mathrm{Ag}}^{+}$ were significantly larger than those of ${\mathrm{I}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ in both $\ensuremath{\gamma}\text{\ensuremath{-}}$ and \ensuremath{\beta}-phases below the order-disorder phase transition temperature $({T}_{\mathrm{c}})$, which led to a characteristic ``rattling'' feature and low-frequency, nearly flat local phonon vibrations. According to our previous work [Xie et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 245901 (2020)], such nondispersive flat phonon band structures are expected to give rise to four-phonon resonance and result in a dramatic increase in the four-phonon scattering over the conventional three-phonon scattering. For $\ensuremath{\gamma}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$, similar four-phonon resonance behavior was also discovered for the low-lying transverse acoustic phonon branches, and it was found that their four-phonon scattering rates were an order of magnitude larger than the corresponding three-phonon scattering rates. Considering the four-phonon scattering, the theoretical ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l}$ of $\ensuremath{\gamma}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$ was predicted to be $\ensuremath{\sim}0.32$ W/m K at 300 K, which was in good agreement with the value deduced from our experiments ($\ensuremath{\sim}0.36$ W/m K at 300 K). Compared to $\ensuremath{\gamma}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$, the acoustic phonons in $\ensuremath{\beta}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$ were more dispersive, and they intertwined with low-energy optical phonons at the zone boundaries. It was found that three-phonon resonance became as important as four-phonon resonance for the nearly flat longitudinal phonon band. The theoretical ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l}$ for $\ensuremath{\beta}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{AgI}$ was determined to be around $\ensuremath{\sim}0.32$ W/m K at room temperature, closely reproducing our measurement value $\ensuremath{\sim}0.29$ W/m K. Our results for AgI demonstrate the strong quartic anharmonicity in materials characterized by the rattling of weak bonding atoms as well as dispersionless phonon band structures. It is believed that this intimate relationship between the low-${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l}$ and flat phonon dispersion can be employed as a good indicator when searching for material systems with ultralow ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{l}$ values, e.g., cagelike rattling structures, quasi-two-dimensional structures, and chainlike structures.