Thermal transport measurements of individual multiwalled nanotubes

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Nov 19;87(21):215502. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.215502. Epub 2001 Oct 31.

Abstract

The thermal conductivity and thermoelectric power of a single carbon nanotube were measured using a microfabricated suspended device. The observed thermal conductivity is more than 3000 W/K m at room temperature, which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the estimation from previous experiments that used macroscopic mat samples. The temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity of nanotubes exhibits a peak at 320 K due to the onset of umklapp phonon scattering. The measured thermoelectric power shows linear temperature dependence with a value of 80 microV/K at room temperature.