The cubic form of silicon carbide, 3C-SiC, is a wide bandgap semiconductor that combines several unique properties, such as high thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and chemical stability. Our users from Prof.
Xiangfan Xu´s team at Tongji University looked into the strain effect on the thermal conductivity of cubic silicon carbide nanowires.
Researchers measured thermal transport measurements of bent 3C-SiC nanowires from 20 to 300 K an observed up to 55% drop in thermal conductivity at 20K, with the less pronounced at higher temperatures and more pronounced with the applied strain. Phonon scattering from the inhomogeneous deformation by strain along the radial direction of the nanowire was found key to the reduction of thermal conductivity.
In this work, miBots were used to precisely split nanowires in halves to compare straight and bent counterparts, and to transfer them to thermal bridges.
"The miBot from Imina Technologies is a high-precision, piezo-actuated robotic manipulator designed for microscale and nanoscale manipulation tasks. With this powerful tool, we can easily cut, pick up, transfer, and even bend nanowires/nanoribbons with nanometer spatial resolution and a high degree of freedom. This capability opens up new possibilities for experiment investigating on the strain effect on the thermal conductivity of SiC nanowires," said Prof. Xu.
