Thermal and Structural Characterizations of Individual Single-, Double-, and Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Thermal conductance measurements of individual single- (S), double- (D), and multi- (M) walled (W) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown using thermal chemical vapor deposition between two suspended microthermometers are reported. The crystal structure of the measured CNT samples is characterized in detail using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thermal conductance, diameter, and chirality are all determined on the same individual SWCNT. The thermal contact resistance per unit length is obtained as 78-585 m K W-1 for three as-grown 10-14 nm diameter MWCNTs on rough Pt electrodes, and decreases by more than 2 times after the deposition of amorphous platinum-carbon composites at the contacts. The obtained intrinsic thermal conductivity of approximately 42-48, 179-336, and 269-343 W m(-1) K-1 at room-temperature for the three MWCNT samples correlates well with TEM-observed defects spaced approximately 13, 20, and 29 nm apart, respectively; whereas the effective thermal conductivity is found to be limited by the thermal contact resistance to be about 600 W m(-1) K-1 at room temperature for the as-grown DWCNT and SWCNT samples without the contact deposition.