Thermal transport in carbon nanotubes is explored using different laser powers to heat suspended single-walled carbon nanotubes ∼5μm in length. The temperature change along the length of a nanotube is determined from the temperature-induced shifts in the G band Raman frequency. The spatial temperature profile reveals the ratio of the contact thermal resistance to the intrinsic thermal resistance of the nanotube. Moreover, the obtained temperature profiles allow differentiation between diffusive and ballistic phonon transport. Diffusive transport is observed in all nanotubes measured and the ratio of thermal contact resistance to intrinsic nanotube thermal resistance is found to range from 0.02 to 17.

On the basis of scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) measurements in contact and lift modes, the low-frequency acoustic phonon temperature in electrically biased, 6.7-9.7 μm long graphene channels is found to be in equilibrium with the anharmonic scattering temperature determined from the Raman 2D peak position. With ∼100 nm scale spatial resolution, the SThM reveals the shifting of local hot spots corresponding to low-carrier concentration regions with the bias and gate voltages in these much shorter samples than those exhibiting similar behaviors in the infrared emission maps.

Thin Au and Ag evaporated films ($5 nm) are known to form island-like growth, which exhibit a strong plasmonic response under visible illumination. In this work, evaporated thin films are imaged with high resolution transmission electron microscopy, to reveal the structure of the semicontinuous metal island film with sub-nm resolution. The electric field distributions and the absorption spectra of these semicontinuous island film geometries are then simulated numerically using the finite difference time domain method and compared with the experimentally measured absorption spectra. We find surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) enhancement factors as high as 10 8 in the regions of small gaps (2 nm), which dominate the electromagnetic response of these films. The small gap enhancement is further substantiated by a statistical analysis of the electric field intensity as a function of the nanogap size. Areal SERS enhancement factors of 4.2 Â 10 4 are obtained for these films. These plasmonic films can also enhance the performance of photocatalytic and photovoltaic phenomena, through near-field coupling. For TiO 2 photocatalysis, we calculate enhancement factors of 16 and 19 for Au and Ag, respectively. We study the effect of annealing on these films, which results in a large reduction in electric field strength due to increased nanoparticle spacing. V

A focused laser beam is used to heat individual single-walled carbon nanotube bundles bridging two suspended microthermometers. By measurement of the temperature rise of the two thermometers, the optical absorption of 7.4-10.3 nm diameter bundles is found to be between 0.03 and 0.44% of the incident photons in the 0.4 microm diameter laser spot. The thermal conductance of the bundle is obtained with the additional measurement of the temperature rise of the nanotubes in the laser spot from shifts in the Raman G band frequency. According to the nanotube bundle diameter determined by transmission electron microscopy, the thermal conductivity is obtained.