Structure-induced variation of thermal conductivity in epoxy resin fibers

Abstract

The ability to control thermal conductivity is important in a wide variety of applications, especially in heat removal, heat insulation, and thermoelectric energy conversion. Herein, we reveal that the thermal conductivity of epoxy resin fibers increases on decreasing the fiber diameter and surpasses the bulk value (0.25 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 300 K) for the fiber with a diameter of 211 nm. The variation of thermal conductivity in epoxy resin fibers can likely be attributed to their microstructure change—enhanced interface phonon scattering between amorphous and crystalline regions and the enhanced alignment of the molecular chain orientation.