Thermal Conductivity Measurements in Nanosheets via Bolometric Effect

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, non-destructive bolometric method for measuring in-plane thermal conductivity of nanosheets and nanowires with high sensitivity, validated on V2O3, TaS2, WS2, and MoS2.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, highly sensitive technique using laser heating and resistance measurement to determine thermal conductivity in nanoscale materials.

Findings

Accurate measurement of V2O3 nanosheets agrees with literature.

First-time measurement of thermal conductivity of metallic 2H-TaS2.

Method applicable to semiconducting nanosheets like WS2 and MoS2.

Abstract

Thermal conductivity measurement techniques for materials with nanoscale dimensions require fabrication of very complicated devices or their applicability is limited to a class of materials. Discovery of new methods with high thermal sensitivity are required for the widespread use of thermal conductivity measurements in characterizing materials properties. We propose and demonstrate a simple non-destructive method with superior thermal sensitivity to measure the in-plane thermal conductivity of nanosheets and nanowires using the bolometric effect. The method utilizes laser beam heating to create a temperature gradient, as small as a fraction of a Kelvin, over the suspended section of the nanomaterial with electrical contacts. Local temperature rise due to the laser irradiation alters the electrical resistance of the device, which can be measured precisely. This resistance change is then used to extract the temperature profile along the nanomaterial using thermal conductivity as a fitting parameter. We measured the thermal conductivity of V2O3 nanosheets to validate the applicability of the method and found an excellent agreement with the literature. Further, we measured the thermal conductivity of metallic 2H-TaS2 for the first time and performed ab initio calculations to support our measurements. Finally, we discussed the applicability of the method on semiconducting nanosheets and performed measurements on WS2 and MoS2 thin flakes.