Thermal Conductivity Measurement of Vertically Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Utilizing Temperature Dependence of Raman Scattering

We present a method for measuring the thermal conductivity and the thermal contact resistance between the film and the substrate of vertically-aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (VA-SWNTs) grown on Si substrate by ACCVD (Alcohol Catalytic Chemical Vapor Deposition) method, utilizing temperature dependence of the Raman spectrum obtained from SWNTs. The method utilizes the excitation laser of the Raman system to heat the VA-SWNT film and measure the temperature simultaneously. The method finds the thermal conductivity of the VA-SWNT film to be around 1 Wm−1 K−1 and the thermal contact resistance between the substrate and the film to be around 10−5 ∼10−6 m2 KW−1 . The obtained film thermal conductivity is converted into equivalent thermal conductivity of an individual SWNT, whose value is several tens of Wm−1 K−1 , and is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the reports on individual SWNTs.Copyright © 2011 by ASME