Thermal transport in two- and three-dimensional nanowire networks

M Verdier and D Lacroix and K Termentzidis, PHYSICAL REVIEW B, 98, 155434 (2018).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.98.155434

Two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) nanowire networks are potential metastructures for nanoelectronics and thermoelectric applications. This new class of nanoarchitectured materials have interesting physical properties due to their low mass density and their high surface-to-volume ratio. Here, we report on thermal transport properties in 2D and 3D interconnected nanowire networks. The thermal conductivity of these networks decreases in increasing the distance between the nodes. This effect is much more pronounced in 3D networks due to increased porosity, surface-to-volume ratio, and the enhanced backscattering at 3D nodes compared to 2D nodes. We propose a model to estimate the thermal resistance related to the 2D and 3D interconnections in order to provide an analytic description of thermal conductivity of such nanowire networks; the latter is in good agreement with molecular dynamic results. The backscattering processes in the nodes increase the thermal resistance by a factor of 5 compared to simple nanowires.

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