Thermal Conductance of an Individual Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube above Room Temperature

TL;DR

This study measures the thermal conductance of a single-wall carbon nanotube from 300 to 800 K using electrical self-heating, revealing high thermal conductivity and temperature-dependent scattering effects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of thermal conductance of an individual SWNT above room temperature and introduces an analytical model considering length and temperature effects.

Findings

Thermal conductance is approximately 2.4 nW/K at room temperature.

Thermal conductivity is nearly 3500 W/m/K at 300 K.

A steeper decrease in thermal conductivity at high temperatures suggests phonon scattering effects.

Abstract

The thermal properties of a suspended metallic single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) are extracted from its high-bias (I-V) electrical characteristics over the 300-800 K temperature range, achieved by Joule self-heating. The thermal conductance is approximately 2.4 nW/K and the thermal conductivity is nearly 3500 W/m/K at room temperature for a SWNT of length 2.6 um and diameter 1.7 nm. A subtle decrease in thermal conductivity steeper than 1/T is observed at the upper end of the temperature range, which is attributed to second order three-phonon scattering between two acoustic modes and one optical mode. We discuss sources of uncertainty and propose a simple analytical model for the SWNT thermal conductivity including length and temperature dependence.