Effects of Structure Defects on Thermal Transport at the Graphene–Water Interface

Abstract

The graphene microchannel heat sinks have attracted extensive attention due to its high cooling efficiency in microelectric devices. The interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) between graphene as the bottom layer of microchannel and water is one of the key factors of its good working performance. In this paper, the impacts of structure defects in graphene surfaces on ITR of the graphene–water interface are investigated using molecular dynamic simulations. The results indicate that graphene layer with different types of structure defects shows different variation trends of ITR as the defect concentration or temperature increases. A peak ITR reduction of nearly 30% is generated with the Stone-Wales defect of 2%. Finally, the density of phonon states and interfacial binding energy analysis are performed to verify the correctness of the simulation results. The present work expands the understanding of structure defects effect on thermal transport in graphene microchannel.