Interfacial Thermal Transport in Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

There is significant amount of research to analyze the thermal, electrical and other physical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). However, the energy transport mechanism at the contact of two tubes is still not well understood. This study investigates the interfacial thermal interaction between two carbon nanotubes using molecular dynamics simulation and wavelet methods. We place the tubes in a crossed configuration and pass a high temperature pulse along one of the CNTs while keeping other ends fixed, and analyze the interaction of this pulse with other nanotube. We apply this technique for nanotubes of chirality in the range of (5,0) to (10,0) to observe the response of tubes with changing diameter. This thermal pulse analysis shows that the coupling between the two tubes is very weak and may be dominated by the slow moving phonon modes with high energy. We perform a wavelet analysis of thermal pulse propagation along a CNT and its impact on another CNT in cross contact. Wavelet transformations of the heat pulse show how different phonon modes are excited and how they evolve and propagate along the tube axis depending on its chirality.