Issue 24, 2023

Controlling local thermal gradients at molecular scales with Janus nanoheaters

Abstract

The generation and control of heat transport with nanoparticles is an essential objective of thermoplasmonics. Janus nanoparticles consisting of dissimilar materials with contrasting interfacial Kapitza conductance provide a route to control heat transport at the nanoscale. Here we use the recently introduced Atomistic Nodal Approach to map the surface temperature and Kapitza conductance of Janus nanoparticles to individual atoms. We show that the transition in the thermal transport properties between the hydrophobic and hydrophilic interfaces is exceptionally abrupt, occurring over length scales below 1 nm. We demonstrate the generality of this result using coarse-grained and all-atom models of gold nanoparticles. Further, we show how this behaviour provides a route to sustain significant temperature differences, on the order of tens of degrees for μW heat rates, between adjacent molecular layers attached to heated gold nanoparticles. Our work provides fundamental insight into nanoscale heat transport and a principle to design heterogeneous Janus nanoparticles for thermal transport applications.

Graphical abstract: Controlling local thermal gradients at molecular scales with Janus nanoheaters

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Feb 2023
Accepted
02 May 2023
First published
05 May 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 10264-10276

Controlling local thermal gradients at molecular scales with Janus nanoheaters

M. Jiang, A. Chapman, J. D. Olarte-Plata and F. Bresme, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 10264 DOI: 10.1039/D3NR00560G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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