Thermal transport through solid/liquid interfaces and in hybrid solid/liquid nanocomposites
Résumé
The thermal transport through crystalline or amorphous silicon and water as well in hybrid nanoporous silicon/water systems are analysed via atomistic simulations in this contribution. Several thermal properties such as the Kapitza resistance or the thermal conductivity within the systems have been systematically studied versus the temperature, the porosity and the initial water density to get insights about the conductive multiphase heat transport. In the first part of the study, we show that the Kapitza resistance is higher at water/crystalline silicon interfaces than at water/amorphous silicon interfaces and that a small linear decrease of the Kapitza resistance is observed upon increasing the average temperature of systems. In the second part of the study, the thermal properties of dry and wet porous silicon systems are investigated. A large thermal conductivity enhancement in the nano-hybrid systems is revealed compared to their dry porous counterparts, which cannot be captured by effective media theory. This rise of the thermal conductivity
might be related to the dense water layer and water density fluctuations close to the solid/liquid interface. A more detailed recent study of the impact of the temperature on the enhancement of the thermal conductivity of a hybrid nanocomposite has shown that there is a maximum of the phenomenon at 300 K. Thus, several structural and dynamical parameters of the nanoconfined water have been examined and their analysis have shown the creation of new heat flux channels through the nanoconfined liquid with signatures in radial distribution function, hydrogen bonds networks and phonon density of states. Our studies provide valuable insights about the thermal properties of hybrid liquid/solid nanocomposites and about the importance of confined liquids within nanoporous materials and in experiments using Scanning Thermal Microscopy under ambient conditions.