Thermal boundary resistance between the end of an individual carbon nanotube and a Au surface

The thermal boundary resistance between an individual carbon nanotube and a Au surface was measured using a microfabricated hot-film sensor. We used both closed and open-ended multi-walled carbon nanotubes and obtained thermal boundary resistance values of 0.947-1.22 × 10⁷KW^{- 1} and 1.43-1.76 × 10⁷KW^{- 1}, respectively. Considering all uncertainties, including the contact area, the thermal boundary conductances per unit area were calculated to be 8.6 × 10⁷-2.2 × 10⁸Wm^{- 2}K^{- 1} for c-axis orientation and 4.2 × 10⁸-1.2 × 10⁹Wm^{- 2}K^{- 1} for the a-axis. The trend in these values agrees with the predicted conductance dependence on the interface orientation of anisotropic carbon-based materials. However, the measured thermal boundary conductances are found to be much larger than the reported results.