NOTICE: Due to a lapse in annual appropriations, most of this website is not being updated. Learn more.
Form submissions will still be accepted but will not receive responses at this time. Sections of this site for programs using non-appropriated funds (such as NVLAP) or those that are excepted from the shutdown (such as CHIPS and NVD) will continue to be updated.
An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
High throughput nanoimaging of thermal conductivity and interfacial thermal conductance
Published
Author(s)
Mingkang Wang, Georg Ramer, Diego Perez, Georges Pavlidis, Jeffrey Schwartz, Liya Yu, Robert Ilic, Vladimir Aksyuk, Andrea Centrone
Abstract
Thermal properties of materials are often determined by measuring thermalization processes. Measuring such properties at the nanoscale, however, requires high sensitivity, high temporal, and high spatial resolutions concurrently, which is beyond the current state of the art. Here, we develop an optomechanical cantilever probe and customize an atomic force microscope (AFM) to measure sample thermalization dynamics with ≈ 10 ns temporal resolution, ≈ 35 nm spatial resolution, and high sensitivity thanks to a very low detection noise ≈ 1 fm/Hz1/2 over a wide (> 100 MHz) bandwidth. This setup enables fast nanoimaging of thermal conductivity (η) and interfacial thermal conductance (G) with very high throughputs thanks to a datapoint acquisition rate that is 500 000 × faster than measurements with conventional AFM cantilevers and ≈6000 × faster compared to art macroscale-resolution time-domain thermoreflectance measurements. As a proof-of-principle demonstration, 100 × 100 pixel maps of η and G are obtained in 200 s with a small relative uncertainty (∆η ≈ 10 % and ∆G ≈ 10 %) on a ≈ 3 µm wide polymer particle with thickness up to 220 nm. This work paves the way to study fast thermal dynamics in materials and devices at the nanoscale.
Wang, M.
, Ramer, G.
, Perez, D.
, Pavlidis, G.
, Schwartz, J.
, Yu, L.
, Ilic, R.
, Aksyuk, V.
and Centrone, A.
(2022),
High throughput nanoimaging of thermal conductivity and interfacial thermal conductance, Nano Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c00337, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934060
(Accessed October 9, 2025)