Thermal conductivity of SiC nanowire formed by combustion synthesis

This paper reports on the measurement of the thermal conductivity of an individual silicon carbide (SiC) nanowire of 140 nm diameter. T-type nanosensor and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) are applied to obtain reliable property data. HRTEM images show that this nanowire has highly-crystalline SiC core of 126 nm diameter and surrounding amorphous silicon-dioxide layer of 7 nm thickness. Thermal contact resistance is estimated by using a simple analysis of the amorphous-carbon nanostructure between nanowire and nanosensor. Obtained apparent thermal conductivity of this nanowire suggests the thermal conductivity of SiC core is over 100W·m -1·K-1 at room temperature, which is much greater than the past-reported data of thin film but less than the pure bulk data. Compared with bulk samples, phonon scattering mechanism is also discussed. ©2008 Old City Publishing, Inc.