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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 101 » Issue 7
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 075903 (2008) [4 pages]

Breakdown of Fourier’s Law in Nanotube Thermal Conductors

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C. W. Chang1,2,*, D. Okawa1, H. Garcia1, A. Majumdar2,3,4, and A. Zettl1,2,4,†
1Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, California 94720, USA
2Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems, University of California at Berkeley, California 94720, USA
3Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, California 94720, USA
4Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Received 11 March 2008; revised 9 July 2008; published 15 August 2008

We present experimental evidence that the room temperature thermal conductivity (κ) of individual multiwalled carbon and boron-nitride nanotubes does not obey Fourier’s empirical law of thermal conduction. Because of isotopic disorder, κ’s of carbon nanotubes and boron-nitride nanotubes show different length dependence behavior. Moreover, for these systems we find that Fourier’s law is violated even when the phonon mean free path is much shorter than the sample length.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.075903
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.075903
PACS:
65.80.+n, 63.22.Gh, 73.63.Fg, 74.25.Kc

*chihwei@berkeley.edu

†azettl@berkeley.edu

 
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