Thermal properties of carbon nanowall layers measured by a pulsed photothermal technique

Abstract

We report the thermal properties of carbon nanowall layers produced by expanding beam radio-frequency plasma. The thermal properties of carbon nanowalls, grown at 600 °C on aluminium nitride thin-film sputtered on fused silica, were measured with a pulsed photo-thermal technique. The apparent thermal conductivity of the carbon at room temperature was found to increase from 20 to 80 Wm−1 K−1 while the thickness varied from 700 to 4300 nm, respectively. The intrinsic thermal conductivity of the carbon nanowalls attained 300 Wm−1 K−1 while the boundary thermal resistance with the aluminium nitride was 3.6 × 10−8 Km2 W−1. These results identify carbon nanowalls as promising material for thermal management applications.