Crystalline polymer nanofibers with ultra-high strength and thermal conductivity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29695754.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03978-3 and PMC identifier 5916895.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Polymers are widely used in daily life, but exhibit low strength and low thermal conductivity as compared to most structural materials. In this work, we develop crystalline polymer nanofibers that exhibit a superb combination of ultra-high strength (11 GPa) and thermal conductivity, exceeding any existing soft materials. Specifically, we demonstrate unique low-dimensionality phonon physics for thermal transport in the nanofibers by measuring their thermal conductivity in a broad temperature range from 20 to 320 K, where the thermal conductivity increases with increasing temperature following an unusual ~T<sup>1</sup> trend below 100 K and eventually peaks around 130-150 K reaching a metal-like value of 90 W m<sup>-1</sup> K<sup>-1</sup>, and then decays as 1/T. The polymer nanofibers are purely electrically insulating and bio-compatible. Combined with their remarkable lightweight-thermal-mechanical concurrent functionality, unique applications in electronics and biology emerge.