A study of the thermal properties of commercially available multi-walled carbon nanotubes and gold nanowires

Abstract

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING A STUDY OF THE THERMAL PROPERTIES OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE MULTI-WALLED CARBON NANOTUBES AND GOLD NANOWIRES KYLE OTTE Thesis under the direction of Professor Deyu Li The thermal properties of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) from quite a few different sources are experimentally studied in this thesis. The measurement apparatus is first described and the method to measure the thermal conductivity of individual nanotubes and nanowires is introduced. MWCNT samples from fourteen different commercial vendors were obtained with one more additional sample provided by a research group from Case Western University for examination. Each sample was first characterized using Raman spectroscopy, and then some samples of interest were selected for thermal measurements. In all a total of seven samples were measured and the highest thermal conductivity was achieved by the sample from Case Western University. From the results of our study it seems that these readily available MWCNTs at large volume with low costs are of limited thermal conductivity. In addition, thermal transport through individual gold nanowires and their contacts were studied. It turns out that the contact between the gold nanowires and the suspended membranes could pose significant thermal resistance compared with the gold nanowires themselves.

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