Vertical Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube Forests as Plasmonic Heat Pipes

High thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes (NTs) is attractive for the heat removal applications. However, the problem of efficient thermal coupling to the heater/cooler still needs to be resolved. We study near-field electromagnetic tunneling as a mechanism of heat transfer across the interface. We report interface thermal (Kapitza) conductance between a low-density vertical metallic single-wall NT forest and a quartz substrate on the order of 50 MW/Km² and explain it by strong electromagnetic interaction and near-field entanglement between the surface phonon–polaritons in the polar dielectric and the NT plasmons. We predict that the thickness of the NT film can be tweaked to the resonance wavelength of these entangled modes for performance optimization of nanocarbon thermal interconnects.