Anritsu, a manufacturer of measuring instruments, has successfully increased the thermal conductivity of "graphene," which is a material composed of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, by periodically creating hexagonal holes to form a mesh pattern. This discovery could lead to the development of thermal control technologies to prevent global warming and find applications in integrated circuits.
Graphene, a material that won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, is a sheet-like substance in which carbon atoms are regularly arranged in a honeycomb shape. With a thickness of just one carbon atom, it is also called the thinnest material in the world. Applications for electronic devices and heat-dissipating materials that leverage these properties are anticipated. However, current technology has a drawback. Namely, it is difficult to control the paths through which heat escapes.
Anritsu established its Advanced Research Laboratory in 2020 and has been working on the nanoscale (nano meaning one-billionth) processing of graphene. Dr. Tomohiro Matsui, who specializes in Physics and is a director at the Laboratory, moved to this facility from a university. Matsui and his team processed graphene and measured its characteristics. Furthermore, they conducted experiments to determine what shape graphene should take for product applications.
When they first processed the graphene into ribbon-like strips, they found that it tended to sag at the bridged sections. When examining the thermal conductivity, they observed that the narrower the ribbon width became, the harder it was for heat to conduct. This behavior followed conventional laws of physics.
Provided by Anritsu
Next, they decided to periodically create hexagonal holes in the graphene to process it into a mesh pattern. By making it a mesh, the edges of the graphene crystal structure were formed into a zigzag pattern. When thermal conductivity was measured in this configuration, an extremely high value was obtained.
It was previously known that thin silicon films with periodically perforated holes showed improved thermal conductivity under ultra-low temperatures near −273℃. Through this processing method, they successfully achieved high thermal conductivity in graphene even under room temperature and atmospheric pressure. They also found that the mesh pattern creates a relatively stronger structure compared to the ribbon-like strips.
Matsui stated: "For example, as an approach to global warming, apart from eliminating the root causes of warming like addressing greenhouse gases, we also need to extract energy from heat and control heat flow. I believe this achievement will be useful for the latter."
The results were published in the electronic edition of the British scientific journal 2D Materials on March 24, and Anritsu announced the findings on March 30.
Original article was provided by the Science Portal and has been translated by Science Japan.