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The Heat Flow through Nanoscale Wires Faces a Fundamental Limit

JUN 01, 2000
Researchers have measured the quantum of thermal conductance, an upper bound on the heat that each phonon can carry. The results imply possible heat dissipation problems for future nanoscale circuits.

If a conducting wire is sufficiently narrow, the electrical conductance through it is quantized, increasing in steps of 2e2/h with the width of the wire. Does an analogous quantization apply to another type of transport—the conduction of heat by phonons? The theoretical answer is “yes.” A narrow, thermally insulating wire should be able to carry no more heat per mode than g0 = π2k2T/3h, where k is Boltz‐mann’s constant, T is the temperature and h is Planck’s constant.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 53, Number 6

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