title: Temperature dependence of electrical and thermal conduction in single silver nanowire.
abstract: In this work, the thermal and electrical transport in an individual silver nanowire is characterized down to 35 K for in-depth understanding of the strong structural defect induced electron scattering. The results indicate that, at room temperature, the electrical resistivity increases by around 4 folds from that of bulk silver. The Debye temperature (151 K) of the silver nanowire is found 36% lower than that (235 K) of bulk silver, confirming strong phonon softening. At room temperature, the thermal conductivity is reduced by 55% from that of bulk silver. This reduction becomes larger as the temperature goes down. To explain the opposite trends of thermal conductivity (κ) ~ temperature (T) of silver nanowire and bulk silver, a unified thermal resistivity (Θ ~ T/k ) is used to elucidate the electron scattering mechanism. A large residual Θ is observed for silver nanowire while that of the bulk silver is almost zero. The same Θ ~ T trend proposes that the silver nanowire and bulk silver share the similar phonon-electron scattering mechanism for thermal transport. Due to phonon-assisted electron energy transfer across grain boundaries, the Lorenz number of the silver nanowire is found much larger than that of bulk silver and decreases with decreasing temperature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2010 Black Engineering Building, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Zhe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Longju
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2010 Black Engineering Building, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Shen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2010 Black Engineering Building, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA [2] School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao Technological University, Qingdao, Shandong, 266033, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xinwei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang