Thermal conductivity measurements of three-dimensional nano-structures

Abstract

The determination of the thermal conductivity is a crucial parameter in fields such as thermoelectricity, in which nano-structuration is one of the paths that is being followed to decrease the thermal conductivity of certain materials as a way to improve their efficiency in the conversion of a thermal gradient into electricity [1]. We have developed a new three-dimensional nano-structure of thermoelectric materials based on interconnected nanowires grown by electrochemical deposition inside a 3D-Anodic Aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane which we developed in 2014 [2], as shown in Fig. 1. In order to characterize the thermal conductivity of these structures, the photoacoustic method has been implemented along with a thermal model developed for these kinds of structures [3], their thermal conductivity can be determined in order to study the effect of the nano-structuration on their thermoelectric efficiency.