A new look at thermal properties of nanotubes

The thermal conductance of nanotubes is examined over a wide temperature range and as a function of mechanical manipulation. It is found that carbon nanotubes maintain impressive thermal conductance up to their decomposition temperature of similar to 3200 K. For both carbon and boron nitride multiwalled nanotubes the thermal conductance is relatively independent of tube bending angle, but it can be substantially tuned by telescoping the tubes. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.