NAnopatterning for Thermal Engineering in Layered Materials

2026-07-22

As modern devices shrink, thermal management become increasingly critical. The need for better understanding and control of thermal transport at the nanoscale thus arise and has been in the spotlight for several years for semiconductors such as silicon in particular. Recently, layered and 2D materials have been the focus of much research for their promising optical and electronic properties, and will be the core of many future devices in the field of Information and Communication Technologies. Their thermal properties need to be understood and controllable. Due to experimental challenges, they have remained largely unexplored. We propose the first experimental realization of thermal and phononic devices in 2D and layered materials that are expected to function at temperatures exceeding 300K. Our approach is based on engineering defects, pores or inclusions, in suspended 2D materials by focused ion beam and electron-beam lithography. These method would allow fabrication of desired (periodic, asymmetric, gradient) patterns with close to atomic precision and characteristic length scale of ~10 nm. That is smaller than the mean free path and coherence length of phonons in materials such aWe propose the first experimental realization of phononic devices in 2D materials that are ex-pected to function at temperatures exceeding 300K. Our approach is based on engineering de-fects in suspended 2D materials by focused ion beam. This method would allow fabrication of desired (periodic, asymmetric) patterns with close to atomic precision and characteristic length scale of ~10 nm. That is smaller than the mean free path and coherence length of phonons in materials such as graphene. This would provide fundamentally new opportunities to study ballis-tic and coherent thermal transport phenomena, for which such dimensions are a requirement, and to design novel thermal devices. If successful, it would represent a major step forward in the field of thermal management at the nanoscale.

France

2026-02-15