TECH FRONT


cases, the ratio was affected in a predictable way, mean- ing that the researchers could tune the material’s thermal conductivity and thermal anisotropy ratio.


“This finding was very counterintuitive,” says Jun Liu, an as-


Introducing lithium ions between layers of molybdenum sulfide can tune the thermal conductivity of the material.


to more than 100. In other words, heat became more than twice as likely to travel in plane—along the layer, rather than between the layers. And that was as good as it got. Adding fewer lithium ions made the thermal anisotropy ratio lower. Adding more ions also made it lower. In both


sistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and co-corresponding author of a paper describing the work. “The conventional wisdom has been that introducing disorder to any material would decrease the thermal anisot- ropy ratio. But based on our observations, we feel that this approach to controlling thermal conductivity would apply not only to other TMDs, but to 2D materials more broadly. “We set out to advance our fundamental understanding of 2D materials, and we have,” Liu adds. “But we also learned something that is likely to be of practical use for the develop- ment of technologies that make use of 2D materials.” For more information, see an abstract of the paper, “Tun- ing Thermal Conductivity in Molybdenum Disulfide by Elec- trochemical Intercalation,” at http://www.nature.com/articles/ ncomms13211 in the journal Nature Communications.


Image courtesy NC State University


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