Graphene Helicoid: The Distinct Properties Promote Application of Graphene Related Materials in Thermal Management

TL;DR

This study investigates the thermal conductivity of graphene helicoid, revealing its unique divergence with thickness and strain-dependent properties, highlighting its potential for advanced thermal management applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces graphene helicoid as a novel nanostructure with distinct thermal properties, demonstrating its divergence in axial thermal conductivity and strain-tunable heat transfer capabilities.

Findings

Axial thermal conductivity increases with thickness following a power law.

Large layer overlap enhances thermal conductivity compared to multi-layer graphene.

Compressive strain boosts thermal conductivity in the small strain regime.

Abstract

The extremely high thermal conductivity of graphene has received great attention both in experiments and calculations. Obviously, new feature in thermal properties is of primary importance for application of graphene-based materials in thermal management in nanoscale. Here, we studied the thermal conductivity of graphene helicoid, a newly reported graphene-related nanostructure, using molecular dynamics simulation. Interestingly, in contrast to the converged cross-plane thermal conductivity in multi-layer graphene, axial thermal conductivity of graphene helicoid keeps increasing with thickness with a power law scaling relationship, which is a consequence of the divergent in-plane thermal conductivity of two-dimensional graphene. Moreover, the large overlap between adjacent layers in graphene helicoid also promotes higher thermal conductivity than multi-layer graphene. Furthermore, in the small strain regime (< 10%), compressive strain can effectively increase the thermal conductivity of graphene helicoid, while in the ultra large strain regime (~100% to 500%), tensile strain does not decrease the heat current, unlike that in generic solid-state materials. Our results reveal that the divergence in thermal conductivity, associated with the anomalous strain dependence and the unique structural flexibility, make graphene helicoid a new platform for studying fascinating phenomena of key relevance to the scientific understanding and technological applications of graphene-related materials.