Thermal Contact Resistance and Thermal Conductivity of a Carbon Nanofiber

We have measured the thermal resistance of a 152‐nm-diameter carbon nanofiber before and after a platinum layer was deposited on the contacts between the nanofiber and the measurement device. The contact resistance was reduced by the platinum coating for about 9–13% of the total thermal resistance of the nanofiber sample before the platinum coating. At a temperature of 300K, the axial thermal conductivity of the carbon nanofiber is about three times smaller than that of graphite fibers grown by pyrolysis of natural gas prior to high-temperature heat treatment, and increases with temperature in the temperature range between 150K and 310K. The phonon mean free path was found to be about 1.5nm and approximately temperature-independent. This feature and the absence of a peak in the thermal conductivity curve indicate that phonon-boundary and phonon-defect scattering dominate over phonon-phonon Umklapp scattering for the temperature range.