An essential mechanism of heat dissipation in carbon nanotube electronics

TL;DR

This paper identifies surface phonon-polariton scattering as the primary heat dissipation mechanism in carbon nanotube electronics on polar substrates, highlighting its importance for accurate thermal management.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic quantum model to quantify Joule losses via surface phonon-polariton scattering in nanotube devices on polar substrates.

Findings

Surface phonon-polariton scattering dominates energy dissipation.

Effective thermal coupling is 0.1-0.2 W/m.K without bare phononic coupling.

The polariton mechanism significantly affects heat dissipation estimates.

Abstract

Excess heat generated in integrated circuits is one of the major problems of modern electronics. Surface phonon-polariton scattering is shown here to be the dominant mechanism for hot charge carrier energy dissipation in a nanotube device fabricated on a polar substrate, such as $SiO_2$. Using microscopic quantum models the Joule losses were calculated for the various energy dissipation channels as a function of the electric field, doping, and temperature. The polariton mechanism must be taken into account to obtain an accurate estimate of the effective thermal coupling of the non-suspended nanotube to the substrate, which was found to be 0.1-0.2 W/m.K even in the absence of the bare phononic thermal coupling.