Study of the thermal, electrical and thermoelectric properties of metallic nanofilms

Metallic nanofilm is a typical nanomaterial, which has wide application and provides rich new physics. It is of great importance and special interest to study the thermal, electrical and thermoelectric properties of the metallic nanofilms. Over the past decades, characterization and study the underlying influence mechanisms of the electrical conductivity, in-plane and out-of-plane thermal conductivity, electron-phonon relaxation of metallic nanostructures have attracted great attention in both experiment and theory. This review summarizes the progress in developing the characterization method, determining the physical properties data, observing the abnormal phenomena, and proposing new theory on the electrical, thermal, and thermoelectric properties of metallic nanofilms. In addition, related work by our group is reviewed in slightly more detail, including comparatively study of the size effect on steady state thermal and electrical transport, and electron-phonon relaxation in metallic nanofilms, and developing method to characterize the thermoelectric properties of nanofilms. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.