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Thermal properties of graphene and nanostructured carbon materials

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 569–581 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recent years have seen a rapid growth of interest by the scientific and engineering communities in the thermal properties of materials. Heat removal has become a crucial issue for continuing progress in the electronic industry, and thermal conduction in low-dimensional structures has revealed truly intriguing features. Carbon allotropes and their derivatives occupy a unique place in terms of their ability to conduct heat. The room-temperature thermal conductivity of carbon materials span an extraordinary large range — of over five orders of magnitude — from the lowest in amorphous carbons to the highest in graphene and carbon nanotubes. Here, I review the thermal properties of carbon materials focusing on recent results for graphene, carbon nanotubes and nanostructured carbon materials with different degrees of disorder. Special attention is given to the unusual size dependence of heat conduction in two-dimensional crystals and, specifically, in graphene. I also describe the prospects of applications of graphene and carbon materials for thermal management of electronics.

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Figure 1: Thermal properties of carbon allotropes and their derivatives.
Figure 2: Thermal conductivity of disordered and nanostructured carbon materials.
Figure 3: Thermal conductivity of quasi-2D carbon materials: intrinsic versus extrinsic effects.
Figure 4: Thermal properties of low-dimensional carbon materials.

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to K. Saito, L. Lindsay, N. Mingo, C. Dames, R. S. Ruoff, L. Shi, N. Mounet, N. Marzari, B. Q. Ai and T. Heinz for providing figure files. I thank E. P. Pokatilov, D. Nika, C. Dames, L. Shi, D. Cahill, N. Mingo, R. S. Ruoff, P. Kim, J. Shi, M. Dresselhaus, A. Geim and K. Novoselov for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) through award N00014-10-1-0224, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through Focus Center Research Program (FCRP) Center on Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics (FENA), and DARPA Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) under agreement H94003-10-2-1003. Past funding from US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) through contract A9550-08-1-0100 is also acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Program, Bourns College of Engineering, University of California, Riverside, 92521, California, USA

    Alexander A. Balandin

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Balandin, A. Thermal properties of graphene and nanostructured carbon materials. Nature Mater 10, 569–581 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3064

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