The thermal conductivity of a nanostructure is sensitive to its dimensions. A simple analytical scaling law that predicts how conductivity changes with the dimensions of the structure, however, has not been developed. The lack of such a law is a hurdle in "phonon engineering" of many important applications. Here, we report an analytical scaling law for thermal conductivity of nanostructures as a function of their dimensions. We have verified the law using very large molecular dynamics simulations.
@article{arxiv.1206.5357,
title = {An analytical law for size effects on thermal conductivity of nanostructures},
author = {X. W. Zhou and R. E. Reese},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.5357},
year = {2012}
}