Thermal transport in 2D and 3D nanowire networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the thermal conductivity of interconnected nanowire networks in 2D and 3D decreases with increasing node distance, highlighting the impact of dimensionality and porosity on heat transport.

Contribution

It introduces a model to estimate thermal resistance in 2D and 3D nanowire networks, aligning well with molecular dynamics simulations.

Findings

Thermal conductivity decreases with node distance.

3D networks exhibit lower thermal conductivity than 2D.

The proposed model accurately predicts thermal resistance.

Abstract

We report on thermal transport properties in 2 and 3 dimensions interconnected nanowire networks (strings and nodes). The thermal conductivity of these nanostructures decreases in increasing the distance of the nodes, reaching ultra-low values. This effect is much more pronounced in 3D networks due to increased porosity, surface to volume ratio and the enhanced backscattering at 3D nodes compared to 2D nodes. We propose a model to estimate the thermal resistance related to the 2D and 3D interconnections in order to provide an analytic description of thermal conductivity of such nanowire networks; the latter is in good agreement with Molecular Dynamic results.