Diameter and Length Effect on Diffusive-Ballistic Phonon Transport in a Carbon Nanotube

We report a non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) study on heat conduction of finite-length single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The length and diameter dependences of the thermal conductivity are quantified for a range of nanotube-lengths up to a micrometer at room temperature using two different temperature control techniques. A thorough investigation was carried out on the influence of intrinsic thermal boundary resistance between the temperature-controlled layers and the rest of the SWNT. The trend of length effect indicates a gradual transition from nearly pure ballistic phonon transport to diffusive-ballistic phonon transport. The nearly pure ballistic phonon transport was also confirmed by the minor diameter-dependence of thermal conductivity for short SWNTs. For longer SWNTs with stronger diffusive effect, the thermal conductivity is larger for SWNTs with smaller diameters.