title: A universal gauge for thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires with different cross sectional geometries.
abstract: By using molecular dynamics simulations, we study thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) with different cross sectional geometries. It is found that thermal conductivity decreases monotonically with the increase of surface-to-volume ratio (SVR). More interestingly, a simple universal linear dependence of thermal conductivity on SVR is observed for SiNWs with modest cross sectional area (larger than 20 nm(2)), regardless of the cross sectional geometry. As a result, among different shaped SiNWs with the same cross sectional area, the one with triangular cross section has the lowest thermal conductivity. Our study provides not only a universal gauge for thermal conductivity among different cross sectional geometries, but also a designing guidance to tune thermal conductivity by geometry.
authors: Department of Physics and Centre for Computational Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117542, Singapore.
authors: Jie
authors: J
authors: Chen
authors: Gang
authors: G
authors: Zhang
authors: Baowen
authors: B
authors: Li