In-plane lattice thermal conductivities of multilayer graphene films Original Research Article

The in-plane lattice thermal conductivities of a single layer and multilayer graphene films are investigated using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. It is found the thermal conductivity of a single layer graphene is higher than that of multilayer graphene. Increasing the bonding strength between neighboring layers will reduce the in-plane thermal conductivity for multilayer graphene films. The constraints from the neighboring layer play the role of impeding phonon transport along the in-plane direction in multilayer graphene films. This observation implies the thermal conductivity of a single layer graphene will be reduced in practical applications once it is bonded on a substrate.