Influence of Strain States on the Thermal Transport Properties of Single and Multiwalled Carbon Nanostructures

The increasing demand for system miniaturization and high power density energy produces excessive thermal loads on electronic devices with significant mechanical strain. Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) based devices are found to have excellent thermal transport properties that makes them attractive for thermal management of these miniaturized nano-electronic devices under extreme environments. These conductive nanostructure (carbon nanotubes, graphene, etc.) are often embedded in polymers or other high-strain alloys (the matrix phase), and are used as bridging materials for conductivity (electrical and thermal) with strain resiliency. The effect of strain on the thermal transport properties of these nanostructures have often been overlooked and will be the focus of this work. The thermal conductivity of the nanostructure is obtained in LAMMPS using the Heat-Bath method, which is a reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (RNEMD) simulation strategy. In RNEMD, constant amount of heat is added to and removed from hot and cold regions and the resultant temperature gradient is measured. The effect of strain on the thermal conductivity of the single and multiwalled nanostructures of various configurations will be discussed with specific emphasis on the phonon density of states of nanotubes at different strain states.