Thermal transport at nanoscale is a topic of interest to us from the perspective of phonons: quantized elastic vibrations of lattice materials. Examples of such materials include Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene, among others. The influence of strongly anharmonic interactions and high temperature effects on the thermal transport properties of nano materials is studied in collaboration with Prof. Nojeh from ECE and Prof. Rottler from Physics. Our common interest is to elucidate the physics behind the so called heat trap effect, presumably from localized phonon excitation which manifests as an intense heat spot trapped in a CNT forest in a spatially localized region. Trapping as opposed to diffusion of a laser excited heat spot in CNT forests is a surprising phenomenon we do not fully understand, yet.
More to follow on this topic.
Last updated: 21/10/2018