Thermal conductivity of individual carbon nanofibers Original Research Article

In the present paper, we present results of thermal conductivity measurements in commercially-available, chemical vapor deposition grown, heat-treated and non-heat-treated individual carbon nanofibers (CNFs). The thermal conductivity measurements are made using the T-type probe experimental configuration using a Wollaston wire probe inside a high resolution scanning electron microscope. The results show a significant increase in the thermal conductivity of CNFs that are annealed at 2800 °C for 20 h when compared with the non-heat-treated CNF samples. When adjusted for thermal contact resistance, the highest measured thermal conductivity is 449 ± 39 W/m-K. The average thermal conductivity of the heat-treated samples is 163 W/m-K, while the average thermal conductivity of the non-heat-treated samples is 4.6 W/m-K. The results demonstrate the importance of the quality of the CNFs, in particular their heat treatment (high temperature annealing), in controlling their thermal conductivity for thermal management applications.