Evaluation of thermal conductivity of single carbon nanotube in liquid using photofabricated fluorescent micropillars

Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNT) is one of the most promising materials as nano actuators and sensors. There are a lot of studies on mechanical and thermal properties of a single CNT in vacuum condition. However, thermal conductivity of the single CNT in liquid are not well investigated. In this paper, we propose measurement of thermal conductivity of a single CNT in liquid using photo fabricated micro pillar array. This pillar contains temperature-sensitive fluorescent dye Rhodamine B. Roles of the pillars are temperature measurement and heat input by infrared laser. The both edges of CNT are included in the micro pillars made of photoresist by photolithography. Thermal conductivity was evaluated by measuring the temperature variation of each pillar fixing the CNT and calculating heat quantity passing through the CNT. We demonstrated fabrication of micro pillar array fixing single CNT and evaluation of thermal conductivity of single CNT in liquid. From experiments, thermal conductivity of a single CNT in liquid was 1.2×103 [W/mK].