Heat transfer in metallic nanometre-sized gaps

Rubén López-Nebreda, Oscar Mateos-Lopez, Pablo Martinez Martinez, Juan José García-Esteban, Ángel Ibabe, Nuria Roca-Giménez, Pilar Segovia, Enrique Garcia Michel, Eduardo J. H. Lee, Jose Guilherme Vilhena, Juan Carlos Cuevas () and Nicolás Agraït ()
Additional contact information
Rubén López-Nebreda: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Oscar Mateos-Lopez: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Pablo Martinez Martinez: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Juan José García-Esteban: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Ángel Ibabe: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Nuria Roca-Giménez: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Pilar Segovia: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Enrique Garcia Michel: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Eduardo J. H. Lee: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Jose Guilherme Vilhena: Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CSIC)
Juan Carlos Cuevas: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Nicolás Agraït: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Heat transfer in nanoscale gaps is of key relevance for a variety of technologies. Recent experiments have reported contradictory results shedding doubts about the fundamental mechanisms for heat exchange when bodies are separated by nanometre-sized gaps. Here, we aim at resolving this controversy by measuring the thermal conductance of gold atomic-sized contacts with a custom-designed scanning tunnelling microscope that incorporates a novel thermal probe. This technique enables the measurement of thermal and electrical conductance in different transport regimes. When the electrodes are separated by a nanometre-sized gap, we observe thermal signals whose magnitude and gap size dependence cannot be explained with standard heat transfer mechanisms. With the help of non-equilibrium molecular dynamic simulations, we elucidate that these anomalous signals are due to the thermal conduction through water menisci that form between tip and sample under customary operation conditions. Our work resolves this fundamental puzzle and suggests avenues for the investigation of heat conduction in atomic and molecular junctions.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62672-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62672-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62672-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().