Thermal Moore’s law and near-field thermal conductance in carbon-based electronics

The novel thermal conductance mechanism, theoretically predicted and experimentally measured in nanotube field-effect transistors (FET), is discussed with respect to the power dissipation problem of modern carbon-based electronics. Such an effect is due to the near-field coupling of the charge carriers in the transistor channel with the local electric field of the surface electromagnetic modes. The coupling leads to a quantum electrodynamic (QED) energy exchange between the hot electrons in FET channel and the optical polar phonon bath being in thermal equilibrium with the substrate. For an example of a NT on silica, this QED coupling mechanism is shown to exceed significantly the interface Kapitza conductance, that is, the classical phonon heat transport. The QED thermal conductance is proposed to play dominant role in the energy dissipation in nanoelectronics with a hetero-interface between the device channel and the polar substrate.