Microscale Imaging of Thermal Conductivity Suppression at Grain Boundaries

Abstract: Grain‐boundary engineering is an effective strategy to tune the thermal conductivity of materials, leading to improved performance in thermoelectric, thermal‐barrier coatings, and thermal management applications. Despite the central importance to thermal transport, a clear understanding of how grain boundaries modulate the microscale heat flow is missing, owing to the scarcity of local investigations. Here, thermal imaging of individual grain boundaries is demonstrated in thermoelectric SnTe via spatially resolved frequency‐domain thermoreflectance. Measurements with microscale resolution reveal local suppressions in thermal conductivity at grain boundaries. Also, the grain‐boundary thermal resistance – extracted by employing a Gibbs excess approach – is found to be correlated with the grain‐boundary misorientation angle. Extracting thermal properties, including thermal boundary resistances, from microscale imaging can provide comprehensive understanding of how microstructure affects heat transport, crucially impacting the materials design of high‐performance thermal‐management and energy‐conversion devices.

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Microscale Imaging of Thermal Conductivity Suppression at Grain Boundaries ; day:28 ; month:07 ; year:2023 ; extent:10 ; Advanced materials ; (28.07.2023) (gesamt 10)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Isotta, Eleonora ; Jiang, Shizhou ; Moller, Gregory ; Zevalkink, Alexandra ; Snyder, G. Jeffrey ; Balogun, Oluwaseyi

Further information

• DOI: 10.1002/adma.202302777
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2023072915055385751303
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:49 AM CEST