The thermal conductivity of various carbon nanotubes with defects or intramolecular junctions was studied using a non-equilibrium molecular dynamics approach. The results showed that the thermal conductivity of both armchair and zig-zag carbon nanotubes increased with a decrease in the radius of the tube. The thermal conductivity of armchair tubes was higher than that of zig-zag tubes when the radii of the two tubes were kept almost same. Discontinuities appeared in the temperature profile along the tube axial to the region of intramolecular junctions, resulting in the large temperature gradient and thus lowering the thermal conductivity of (n,n)/(m,0) tube with one intramolecular junction and an (m,0)/(n,n)/(m,0) tube with two intramolecular junctions. For the (m,0)/(n,n)/(m,0) tube with two intramolecular junctions, the phonon mean free path of the middle (n,n) tube was much smaller than that of the isolated (n,n) tube.

The Thermal Conductivity of Carbon Nanotubes with Defects and Intramolecular Junctions. Q.Zhou, F.Meng, Z.Liu, S.Shi: Journal of Nanomaterials, 2013, 842819