Thermal conductivity of free-standing silicon nanowire using Raman spectroscopy

Low dimensional systems, nanowires (NWs), in particular, have exhibited excellent optical and electronic properties. Understanding the thermal properties in semiconductor NWs is very important for their applications in electronic devices. In the present study, the thermal conductivity of a freestanding silicon NW is estimated by employing Raman spectroscopy. The advantage of this technique is that the excitation source (laser) acts as both the heater and probe. The variations of the first-order Raman peak position of the freestanding silicon NW with respect to temperature and laser power are recorded. From the analysis of effective laser power absorbed by exposed silicon NW and a detailed Raman study along with the concept of longitudinal heat distribution in silicon NW, the thermal conductivity of the freestanding silicon NW of ∼112 nm diameter is estimated to be ∼53 W m^-1 K^{- 1}.