Continuously Tunable Thermal Conductance in Arched Graphene Nanoribbons

The thermal transport in arched graphene nanoribbons is investigated by using the nonequilibrium Green's function method. It is found that the thermal conductance can be modulated controllably and reversibly by varying the geometry and number of arches, while the tuning range can be up to 80% of the flat graphene nanoribbons. The analysis of force constant reveals that the reduction of thermal conductance mainly originates from the phonon scattering by the structural deformation. The interesting findings indicate that the arched graphene nanoribbons can be utilized as thermal conductance modulators and may have great potential applications for nanoscale thermal management. (C) 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics