Prediction of the thermal conductivity of ZnO nanobelts

A prediction tool, based on a kinetic theory of gas model, previously developed for the thermal properties prediction of ZnO bulk crystal and nanostructures is used in order to be compared with existing literature results. As thermal conductivity measurement for nanostructures are seldom, the aim is to understand the validity range of the models and discuss their reliability. The estimation of the specific heat is in excellent agreement with data of bulk samples measured by other researchers. For the thermal conductivity, the comparison with other prediction tools and experimental results is done for nanowires and nanofilms. The agreement and the differences are discussed. It allows defining the complementarity of the prediction tools. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4759317]