Reduction of interfacial thermal resistance of overlapped graphene by bonding carbon chains

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that bonding carbon chains between overlapped graphene nanoribbons significantly reduces interfacial thermal resistance, with molecular dynamics simulations and an analytical model explaining the mechanism and effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of bonding carbon chains to lower interfacial thermal resistance and validates an analytical cross-interface model for accurate analysis.

Findings

Order of magnitude reduction in thermal resistance with one carbon chain

Diminishing returns as more chains are added

Validation of CIM over traditional models

Abstract

Exploring the mechanism of interfacial thermal transport and reducing the interfacial thermal resistance is of great importance for thermal management and modulation. Herein, the interfacial thermal resistance between overlapped graphene nanoribbons is largely reduced by adding bonded carbon chains by performing molecular dynamics simulations. And the analytical model (cross-interface model, CIM) is utilized to analyze and explain the two-dimensional thermal transport mechanism at cross-interface. An order of magnitude reduction in interfacial thermal resistance is found as the graphene nanoribbons are bonded by just one carbon chain. Interestingly, the decreasing rate of interfacial thermal resistance slows down gradually with the increasing of the number of carbon chains, which can be explained by the proposed theoretical relationship based on CIM. Moreover, by the comparison of CIM and traditional simplified model, the accuracy of CIM is verified and demonstrated in overlapped graphene nanoribbons. This work provides a new way to improve the interfacial thermal transport and reveal the essential mechanism for low-dimensional materials applied in thermal management.