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Nanoelectronics

Nanotubes throw their heat around

Nature Nanotechnology volume 7, pages 280–281 (2012)Cite this article

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A direct current flowing through a carbon nanotube on a substrate heats the substrate but not the nanotube, and it may be possible to exploit this phenomenon in the thermal management of nanoelectronic devices.

When carbon nanotubes and graphene are described as attractive electronic materials, it is usually because of their high carrier mobilities1,2 and atomic-scale dimensions, which are characteristics expected to aid efforts to reduce the size of electronics3,4. However, the potential impact of such carbon nanostructures for thermal management — arguably an equally important challenge facing the electronics community — is less clear. Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, John Cumings and co-workers at the University of Maryland, College Park report that they have discovered a surprising new facet of charge transport in one dimension: a direct current passing through a carbon nanotube can heat the substrate under the nanotube, but leave the nanotube itself cool5.

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Figure 1: A possible model for substrate heating by a direct current flowing through a nanotube.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dioxide Materials, 60 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, 61820, Illinois, USA

    Amin Salehi-Khojin, Wei Zhu & Richard I. Masel

  2. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, 60607, Illinois, USA

    Amin Salehi-Khojin

Authors
  1. Amin Salehi-Khojin
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  2. Wei Zhu
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  3. Richard I. Masel
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Correspondence to Amin Salehi-Khojin, Wei Zhu or Richard I. Masel.

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Salehi-Khojin, A., Zhu, W. & Masel, R. Nanotubes throw their heat around. Nature Nanotech 7, 280–281 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.68

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