We present a model to show that heat propagation away from a local source depends strongly on dimensionality, leading to dramatic localization in low-dimensional systems. An example of such a system is a carbon nanotube array. We further show that this localization is amplified due to a runaway mechanism if thermal conductivity declines rapidly with temperature. Extremely high temperatures of thousands of Kelvins and gradients of hundreds of K/{\mu}m may thus be obtained in a conductor using a modest local power source such as a laser pointer. This is of fundamental importance for high-efficiency energy conversion through thermoelectric and thermionic mechanisms, as well as various other applications.
@article{arxiv.1805.10425,
title = {Heat localization through reduced dimensionality},
author = {Mike Chang and Harrison D. E. Fan and Mokter M. Chowdhury and George A. Sawatzky and Alireza Nojeh},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.10425},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Main text 19 pages, 5 figures; Supplemental material 9 pages, 6 figures