Experimental Study of the Thermal Conductivity of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Based Thin Films

The single-walled carbon nanotube-based thin films with a thickness from 11 ± 3 to 157 ± 18 nm have been formed using vacuum filtration. The thermal conductivity of the thin films as a function of thickness and temperature up to 450 K has been studied by the 3ω technique. It has been found that, in the region of 49 nm, the supplied heat from a gold strip started propagating with the high efficiency to the thin film plane. The thermal conductivity of the thin films with a thickness of 49 ± 8 nm was measured using the 3ω technique for bulk samples. It has been found that the thermal conductivity of the single-walled carbon nanotube-based thin films strongly depends on their thickness and temperature. The thermal conductivity sharply (by a factor of ~60) increases with an increase in thickness from 11 ± 3 to 65 ± 4 nm. In addition, it has been observed that the thermal conductivity of the thin film with a thickness of 157 ± 18 nm rapidly decreases from 211 ± 11 to 27.5 ± 1.4 W m–1 K–1 at 300 and 450 K, respectively.