Energy coupling across low-dimensional contact interfaces at the atomic scale

Abstract

The miniaturization in energy devices and their critical needs for heat dissipation have facilitated research on exceptional thermal properties of novel low-dimensional materials. Current studies demonstrated the main challenge for solving thermal transport issues is the large thermal contact resistance across these low-dimensional material interfaces when they are either bundled together or supported by a substrate. A clear understanding of thermal transport across these atomic interfaces through experimental characterization or numerical simulation is important, but nontrivial. Due to instrumentation limit, only a few thermal characterization methods are applicable. Accordingly, many studies have been conducted by theoretical analysis and molecular dynamics to understand the physical process during this ultra-fast and ultra-small thermal transport. In this review, both experimental work and molecular dynamics studies on atomic-scale thermal contact resistance of low-dimensional materials (from zero-to two-dimensional) are reviewed. Challenges as well as opportunities in the study of thermal transport in atomic-layer structures are outlined. Considering the remarkable complexity of physical/chemical conditions, there is still a large room in understanding fundamentals of energy coupling across these atomic-layer interfaces.

Growth of quantum dot coated core-shell anisotropic nanowires for improved thermal and electronic transport

“…3(b) and the supplementary material. 28 After the NEMD calculation, a steady-state temperature gradient was built along the heat flux direction [ Fig. 3(c)].…”

Quantifying thermal boundary conductance of 2D–3D interfaces

“…Atomicallythin 2D materials have promising potential for nextgeneration nano-and optoelectronics [4][5][6]. However, heat dissipation from hot spots in the 2D material to its environment remains a critical concern to the design of 2D-based devices [6][7][8][9]. Thermal currents flowing in a 2D material can either dissipate through source/drain contacts, as in a transistor configuration, and/or through a supporting substrate via the vdW interaction [10].…”

Phonon transmission at Si/Ge and polytypic Ge interfaces using full-band mismatch based models

“…Although MD simulation can currently manage up to tens of thousands atoms [18], their use is restricted in terms of temperature range that should be higher than the Debye temperature. In this work, we opted to use semi-analytical derivations of the heat (also called thermal) flux carried by phonons and conductance across interfaces, which allows us to easily manage complex interface orientations while capturing the anisotropic effects of phonon dispersion.…”