Matthew C. Wingert

Sub-amorphous Thermal Conductivity in Ultrathin Crystalline Silicon Nanotubes

Thermal transport behavior in nanostructures has become increasingly important for understanding and designing next generation electronic and energy devices. This has fueled vibrant research targeting both the causes and ability to induce extraordinary reductions of thermal conductivity in crystalline materials, which has predominantly been achieved by understanding that the phonon mean free path (MFP) is limited by the characteristic size of crystalline nanostructures, known as the boundary scattering or Casimir limit. Herein, by using a highly sensitive measurement system, we show that crystalline Si (c-Si) nanotubes (NTs) with shell thickness as thin as ∼5 nm exhibit a low thermal conductivity of ∼1.1 W m(-1) K(-1). Importantly, this value is lower than the apparent boundary scattering limit and is even about 30% lower than the measured value for amorphous Si (a-Si) NTs with similar geometries. This finding diverges from the prevailing general notion that amorphous materials represent the lower limit of thermal transport but can be explained by the strong elastic softening effect observed in the c-Si NTs, measured as a 6-fold reduction in Youngs modulus compared to bulk Si and nearly half that of the a-Si NTs. These results illustrate the potent prospect of employing the elastic softening effect to engineer lower than amorphous, or subamorphous, thermal conductivity in ultrathin crystalline nanostructures.

Ultra-sensitive thermal conductance measurement of one-dimensional nanostructures enhanced by differential bridge

Thermal conductivity of one-dimensional nanostructures, such as nanowires, nanotubes, and polymer chains, is of significant interest for understanding nanoscale thermal transport phenomena as well as for practical applications in nanoelectronics, energy conversion, and thermal management. Various techniques have been developed during the past decade for measuring this fundamental quantity at the individual nanostructure level. However, the sensitivity of these techniques is generally limited to 1 × 10(-9) W∕K, which is inadequate for small diameter nanostructures that potentially possess thermal conductance ranging between 10(-11) and 10(-10) W∕K. In this paper, we demonstrate an experimental technique which is capable of measuring thermal conductance of ∼10(-11) W∕K. The improved sensitivity is achieved by using an on-chip Wheatstone bridge circuit that overcomes several instrumentation issues. It provides a more effective method of characterizing the thermal properties of smaller and less conductive one-dimensional nanostructures. The best sensitivity experimentally achieved experienced a noise equivalent temperature below 0.5 mK and a minimum conductance measurement of 1 × 10(-11) W∕K. Measuring the temperature fluctuation of both the four-point and bridge measurements over a 4 h time period shows a reduction in measured temperature fluctuation from 100 mK to 0.6 mK. Measurement of a 15 nm Ge nanowire and background conductance signal with no wire present demonstrates the increased sensitivity of the bridge method over the traditional four-point I-V measurement. This ultra-sensitive measurement platform allows for thermal measurements of materials at new size scales and will improve our understanding of thermal transport in nanoscale structures.

Phase transformation and thermoelectric properties of bismuth-telluride nanowires

Thermoelectric materials have attracted much attention due to the current interest in energy conversion and recent advancements in nano-engineering. A simple approach to synthesize BiTe and Bi2Te3 micro/nanowires was developed by combining solution chemistry reactions and catalyst-free vapor-solid growth. A pathway to transform the as-grown BiTe nanostructures into Bi2Te3 can be identified through the Bi-Te phase diagram. Structural characterization of these products was identified using standard microscopy practices. Meanwhile, thermoelectric properties of individual Bi-Te compound micro/nanowires were determined by the suspended microdevice technique. This approach provides an applicable route to synthesize advanced high performance thermoelectric materials in quantities and can be used for a wide range of low-dimensional structures.

Thermal transport in amorphous materials: a review

Thermal transport plays a crucial role in performance and reliability of semiconductor electronic devices, where heat is mainly carried by phonons. Phonon transport in crystalline semiconductor materials, such as Si, Ge, GaAs, GaN, etc, has been extensively studied over the past two decades. In fact, study of phonon physics in crystalline semiconductor materials in both bulk and nanostructure forms has been the cornerstone of the emerging field of ‘nanoscale heat transfer’. On the contrary, thermal properties of amorphous materials have been relatively less explored. Recently, however, a growing number of studies have re-examined the thermal properties of amorphous semiconductors, such as amorphous Si. These studies, which included both computational and experimental work, have revealed that phonon transport in amorphous materials is perhaps more complicated than previously thought. For instance, depending on the type of amorphous materials, thermal transport occurs via three types of vibrations: propagons, diffusons, and locons, corresponding to the propagating, diffusion, and localized modes, respectively. The relative contribution of each of these modes dictates the thermal conductivity of the material, including its magnitude and its dependence on sample size and temperature. In this article, we will review the fundamental principles and recent development regarding thermal transport in amorphous semiconductors.

Strong size-dependent stress relaxation in electrospun polymer nanofibers

Electrospun polymer nanofibers have garnered significant interest due to their strong size-dependent material properties, such as tensile moduli, strength, toughness, and glass transition temperatures. These properties are closely correlated with polymer chain dynamics. In most applications, polymers usually exhibit viscoelastic behaviors such as stress relaxation and creep, which are also determined by the motion of polymer chains. However, the size-dependent viscoelasticity has not been studied previously in polymer nanofibers. Here, we report the first experimental evidence of significant size-dependent stress relaxation in electrospun Nylon-11 nanofibers as well as size-dependent viscosity of the confined amorphous regions. In conjunction with the dramatically increasing stiffness of nano-scaled fibers, this strong relaxation enables size-tunable properties which break the traditional damping-stiffness tradeoff, qualifying electrospun nanofibers as a promising set of size-tunable materials with an unu...

Simultaneous specific heat and thermal conductivity measurement of individual nanostructures

Fundamental phonon transport properties in semiconductor nanostructures are important for their applications in energy conversion and storage, such as thermoelectrics and photovoltaics. Thermal conductivity measurements of semiconductor nanostructures have been extensively pursued and have enhanced our understanding of phonon transport physics. Specific heat of individual nanostructures, despite being an important thermophysical parameter that reflects the thermodynamics of solids, has remained difficult to characterize. Prior measurements were limited to ensembles of nanostructures in which coupling and sample inhomogeneity could play a role. Herein we report the first simultaneous specific heat and thermal conductivity measurements of individual rod-like nanostructures such as nanowires and nanofibers. This technique is demonstrated by measuring the specific heat and thermal conductivity of single ~600–700 nm diameter Nylon-11 nanofibers (NFs). The results show that the thermal conductivity of the NF is increased by 50% over the bulk value, while the specific heat of the NFs exhibits bulk-like behavior. We find that the thermal diffusivity obtained from the measurement, which is related to the phonon mean free path (MFP), decreases with temperature, indicating that the intrinsic phonon Umklapp scattering plays a role in the NFs. This platform can also be applied to one- and two- dimensional semiconductor nanostructures to probe size effects on the phonon spectra and other transport physics.

Chapter 9:Phononic and Electronic Engineering in Nanowires for Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance

In this chapter, we review recent developments pertaining to “nanowire thermoelectrics.” In particular, we focus on the fundamental aspects of engineering charge and heat transport properties in nanowires and its implications for thermoelectric applications. Specifically, we discuss the following topics in this chapter: general background of thermoelectrics and the relevant length scales related to thermoelectric transport; brief overview of main synthesis techniques for thermoelectric nanowires; thermal conductivity of semiconductor nanowires, including characterization techniques and measurement results; thermoelectric power factor measurements and results of semiconductor nanowires; approaches to assemble nanowires into bulk thermoelectric materials and devices; future outlook of possible strategies pertaining to nanowire thermoelectrics.

Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Thin Nanowires

Semiconductor nanowires hold great promise for applications such as nano-electronics and energy conversion. A detailed knowledge of the thermal properties of the nanowire materials is essential for proper thermal management in nano-devices and thermal energy conversion. Prior thermal measurements on individual nanowires have shown that nanowires have reduced lattice thermal conductivity and, in some cases, enhanced thermoelectric properties. However, such thermal measurements are limited to nanowire thermal conductance of the order of 1 nW/K and are typically limited to nanowire diameters greater than 20 nm. Measurements to obtain the thermal conductivities of single nanowires with smaller diameter nanowires, which may exhibit even lower thermal conductivity and possibly quantum confinement effect at low temperature, have proven elusive. Herein, we demonstrated an experimental technique with improved measurement sensitivity that is capable of measuring the thermal conductance of 10 pW/K. This more sensitive technique overcomes several issues with current instrumentations and provides a tool for characterizing the properties of much smaller diameter nanowires, such as nanowires with 1 W/m-K thermal conductivity, 10 nm diameter and 1 μm length. Measurement enabled by this measurement platform will improve our understanding of thermal transport in confined nanostructures.Copyright