Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2021) 136: 959
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01901-2

Regular Article

Thermal transport in van der Waals graphene/boron-nitride structure: a molecular dynamics study

Advanced Simulation and Computing Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering Department, Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran

^b rajabpour@eng.ikiu.ac.ir

Received: 20 May 2021
Accepted: 25 August 2021
Published online: 20 September 2021

Abstract

Among the van der Waals heterostructures, graphene/h-BN heterostructure is an appropriate candidate for 2D nanoelectronic devices. In this paper, using a non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation approach, heat transport in bilayer graphene/h-BN and graphene/h-BN van der Waals heterostructure (i.e. h-BN flakes periodically inserted on the top and bottom of a graphene layer) are explored. The results show that by increasing the length of the system, the thermal conductivity of bilayer graphene/h-BN increases. Furthermore, it was revealed that heat transport in graphene/h-BN heterostructure enhances compared to that in monolayer graphene or monolayer h-BN. The size effect analysis shows that the heat fluxes passing through each layer in bilayer graphene/h-BN converges when the size of the system is larger than 100 nm. The results can improve the understanding of heat transfer phenomena in the van der Waals heterostructures and improve designing of heterostructures for better thermal management and heat dissipation.