Electrical and Thermal Transport through Silver Nanowires and Their Contacts: Effects of Elastic Stiffening

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c02014
• Publication Date: 2020-08-24T17:38:42Z
• Authors: Yang Zhao; Matthew L. Fitzge...; Yi Tao; Zhiliang Pan; Godfrey Sauti; Dongyan Xu; Ya-Qiong Xu; Deyu Li
• Keywords: Stiffening; Electrical contacts

Silver nanowires have been widely adopted as nanofillers in composite materials used for various applications. Electrical and thermal properties of these composites are critical proper device operation, highly depend on transport through the their contacts, yet studies silver limited to one or two samples no solid data reported individual contacts. Through systematic measurements different sizes, we show that Lorenz number increases with decreasing wire diameter has a higher value at Examination corresponding electrical conductivities indicates changes due contributions phonons become more important result elastic stiffening. The derived contact conductance per unit area between is ∼10 times carbon nanotubes. This helps explain significant conductivity enhancement nanowires-based composites.