Scientific Achievement

Researchers in the Inorganic/Organic Nanocomposites program discovered an anomalous enhancement of thermal conductivity with decreasing diameter in Eshelby-twisted van der Waals nanowires which can be attributed to compressive strain around central dislocations.

Significance and Impact

This behavior opens avenues for addressing classical size effects in low-dimensional nanomaterials for thermal management, enabling new material engineering approaches by modifying dislocation density, orientation and characteristic.

Research Details

Eshelby twisted GeS nanowires with screw dislocation are synthesized using physical vapor deposition method on (100) silicon substrate with a source temperature of 425 °C, a deposition temperature of 320 °C and a growth time of 20 minutes.

Publication Details

Y. Liu, L. Jin, T. Pandey, H. Sun, Y. Liu, X. Li, A. Rodriguez, Y. Wang, T. Zhou, R. Chen, Y. Sun, Y. Yang, D.C. Chrzan, L. Lindsay, J. Wu, J. Yao, Nature Materials (2025).

DOI:10.1038/s41563-024-02108-3

Work was performed in the Molecular Foundry, NERSC, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Argonne National Laboratory.