SGER-GOALI: Interfacial Thermal Transport Across Carbon Nanotube Arrays

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Proposal Number: CTS-0646015Principal Investigator: Fisher, Timothy S.Affiliation: Purdue UniversityProposal Title: SGER: Interfacial Thermal Transport Across Carbon Nanotube Arrays Today, new materials can be designed at the atomic level and are projected to improve the efficiency of information processing, heat transfer, and energy conversion. Improved understanding and optimization of therma energy transport through solid-solid interfaces could enabel a wide range of advances in applications relevant to almost every technological enterprise. The proposed exploratory research seeks to address these challenges with an innovative solution that exploits the many unique characteristics of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The intellectual merit of the proposed work derives from the development of detailed understanding ofinterfacial heat transfer from bulk materials through carvon nanotube arrays, with the untimate aim of improving therma interface conductance. Thermal transport through dense CNT arrays is very complicated, given the billions of heat flow paths that exist and the wide variety of local contact features among individual CNTs and between individual CNTs and buld substrates. Successful demonstration of an accurate technique the extract compontent resistance from such a physically complex structure will produce important new knowledge of thermal transport. In furtherance of broad impacts, results of the proposed work will be incorporated into topics on carbon nanotube properties and applications in two recently developed graduate courses and ner coverage will include thermal and electrical transport and thermo-mechanical properties of carbon nanostructures, as well as a lab module that builds on a provious education NSF grant. The project will also support the educational development of one graduate student from an underrepresented group, and this effort will help to continue the strong and demostrated commitment of the PI in enhancing diversity through the training of graduate and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups.