Impacts of length and geometry deformation on thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbons

In this work, we report a theoretical study on thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbons by using molecular dynamics simulation. It is found that the thermal conductivity (kappa) increases with the length (L) as, kappa proportional to L-beta, even when the length is up to 600 nm. Moreover, thermal conductivities of curling and twisted graphene nanoribbons are investigated. In contrast to the obvious dependence on sample length, thermal conductivity is not sensitive to these types of geometry deformation due to the superior flexibility of graphenes. Our results predict that curling graphene nanoribbons may have advantages in suspended single-layer heat dissipation devices. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4788813]