https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30383-8
Colloquium
Anomalous heat conduction and anomalous diffusion in low dimensional nanoscale systems
1
NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering,
National University of Singapore, 117456
Singapore, Republic of
Singapore
2
Centre for Computational Science and Engineering, Graphene
Research Centre, Department of Physics, National University of
Singapore, 117546
Singapore, Republic of
Singapore
3
Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and
Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing
100871, P.R.
China
4
NUS-Tongji Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science and
Department of Physics, Tongji University, Shanghai
200092, P.R.
China
a e-mail: zhanggang@pku.edu.cn
b e-mail: phylibw@nus.edu.sg
Received:
14
May
2012
Received in final form:
6
August
2012
Published online:
1
October
2012
Heat conduction is an important energy transport process in nature. Phonon is the major energy carrier for heat in semiconductors and dielectric materials. In analogy to Ohm’s law of electrical conduction, Fourier’s law is the fundamental law of heat conduction in solids. Although Fourier’s law has received great success in describing macroscopic heat conduction in the past two hundred years, its validity in low dimensional systems is still an open question. Here we give a brief review of the recent developments in experimental, theoretical and numerical studies of heat conduction in low dimensional systems, including lattice models and low dimensional nanostructures such as nanowires, nanotubes and graphene. We will demonstrate that phonons transport in low dimensional systems superdiffusively, which leads to a size dependent thermal conductivity. In other words, Fourier’s law is not applicable in low dimensional structures.
Key words: Colloquium
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag, 2012
