Development of photothermal-resistance technique and its application to thermal diffusivity measurement of single-wall carbon nanotube bundles

Abstract

In this work, a photothermal-resistance technique is developed to characterize the thermophysical properties of one-dimensional micronanostructures. In this technique, a periodically modulated laser beam is used to achieve noncontact heating of suspended individual wires. The temperature response of the sample is monitored by measuring its electrical resistance variation. A 25.4 μm thick platinum wire is used as the reference sample to verify the technique. Applying the photothermal-resistance technique, the thermal diffusivity of single-wall carbon nanotube bundles is measured. The measured thermal diffusivities for three different single-wall carbon nanotube bundles are 2.98× 10-5, 4.41× 10-5, and 6.64× 10-5 m2 s, respectively. These values are much less than the thermal diffusivity of graphite. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.