The measurement of thermal conductivity is a powerful probe that can be used for identifying the nature of heat and charge carriers and structure of the gap in the superconducting compounds. At low temperature when the effect of phonons in transporting heat becomes smaller, one can obtain information about the quasiparticle distribution and the superconducting gap structure. In order to do a sensitive thermal conductivity measurement, we designed and built a thermal conductivity mount. The charge conductivity was measured through the same leads that we used for making the thermal conductivity measurements. To test the mount, we measured the heat and charge conductivity of a silver wire and determined the accuracy with which we could satisfy the Wiedemann--Franz law within 5 \%. We will report the measurements of thermal and electrical conductivities of two filled skutterudite superconducting compounds, PrRu4Sb12 and PrOs4Sb12 at 1.1--35 K temperature range. The differences and similarities between the transport properties of these compounds in the superconducting and normal states along with the results of investigation of the Wiedemann--Franz law will be discussed in the following chapters.

Thermal properties of one dimensional nanostructures are of interest for thermoelectric energy conversion. Thermoelectric efficiency is related to non dimensional thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT=S^2 o T/k, where S ,o , k and T are Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and the absolute temperature respectively. These physical properties are interdependent. Therefore, making materials with high ZT is a very challenging task. However, nanoscale materials can overcome some of these limitations. When the size of nanomaterials is comparable to wavelength and mean free path of energy carriers, especially phonons, size effect contributes to the thermal conductivity reduction without bringing about major changes in the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient. Therefore, the figure of merit ZT can be manipulated. For example, the thermal conductivities of several silicon nanowires were more than two orders of magnitude lower than that of bulk silicon values due to the enhanced boundary scattering. Among the nanoscale semiconductor materials, Silicon-Germanium(SiGe) alloy nanowire is a promising candidate for thermoelectric materials The thermal conductivities of SiGe core-shell nanowires with core diameters of 96nm, 129nm and 177nm were measured using a batch fabricated micro device in a temperature range of 40K-450K. SiGe nanowires used in the experiment were synthesized via the Vapour-Liquid-Solid (VLS) growth method. The thermal conductivity data was compared with thermal conductivity of Si and Ge nanowires. The data was compared with SiGe alloy thin film, bulk SiGe, Si/SixGe1-x superlattice nanowire, Si/Si0.7Ge0.3 superlattice thin film and also with the thermal conductivity of Si0.5Ge0.5 calculated using the Einstein model. The thermal conductivities of these SiGe alloy nanowires observed in this work are ~20 times lower than Si nanowires, ~10 times lower than Ge nanowires, ~3-4 times lower than Si/SixGe1-x superlattice thin film, Si/SixGe1-x superlattice nanowire and about 3 time lower than bulk SiGe alloy. The low values of thermal conductivity are majorly due to the effect of alloy scattering, due to increased boundary scattering as a result of nanoscale diameters, and the interface diffuse scattering by core-shell effect. The influence of core-shell effect, alloy scattering and boundary scattering effect in reducing the thermal conductivity of these nanowires opens up opportunities for tuning thermoelectric properties which can pave way to thermoelectric materials with high figures of merit in the future.

Increased land use change near fragile ecosystems can affect the ecosystem energy balance leading to increased global warming. One component of surface energy balance is soil storage heat flux. In past work, a complex thermal behavior was noticed in the shrink-swell sediment of the upper Nueces Delta (upper Rincon) during summer months as it dried. Soil storage heat flux was found to first increase, then decrease, as the soil dried. It was suggested that the complex behavior was due to the relationship between thermal diffusivity and soil moisture, where thermal diffusivity increases to a local maximum before decreasing with respect to decreasing soil moisture. This study explores the observed phenomenon in a controlled laboratory environment by relating the sediment shrinkage curve to changing heat transfer properties. Due to the complicated nature of the drying-shrinking sediment, it was necessary to measure the sediment shrinkage curve and heat transfer properties in separate experiments. The shrinkage curve was found by correlating measured sample volume with gravimetric moisture content. Heat transfer properties were found using a single needle heat pulse probe. A normalized gravimetric moisture content was used as a common variable to relate the shrinkage curve and heat transfer data. Data suggests that the shrink-swell Rincon sediment portrays different behavior in drying than that which occurs for a non-shrink-swell soil. For the shrink-swell Rincon sediment, thermal conductivity is seen to increase with decreasing moisture, the suggested mechanism being increased surface area contact between particles as the shrinking sediment dries.

The thermal conductivity, thermopower, and electrical resistivity of (R1.5Ce0.5)RuSr2Cu2O10-delta (R=Gd, Eu) polycrystalline samples with different oxygen doping level are investigated in temperature range 1.8-300 K. Much attention is focused on the dependence of the effect of the annealing in high oxygen pressures as well as the effect of aging on transport coefficients in normal and superconducting states. It was found that the process of deoxydation goes faster for Ru-1222(Eu) samples than for Ru- 1222(Gd) samples, which results in more pronounced granular effects in Ru-1222(Eu) samples. The relative contribution to the thermal conductivity due to electrons and phonons was estimated by using the Wiedemann-Franz relation and the resistivity data. The calculation showed that the maximum electron contribution for Ru-1222(Eu) is about 0.75% and that for Ru-1222(Gd) samples is around 4 %.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1930. / Typescript. Title from PDF title page (viewed Nov. 6, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. [37]). Online version of the print original.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 59). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1930. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaf [37]).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 59). Also available on the Internet.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:24:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:04:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 00954.pdf: 5956396 bytes, checksum: 00e5961b8c5182b04c272a41f666c5de (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IEA/D / Escola Politecnica, Universidade de Sao Paulo - POLI/USP

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:24:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:04:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 00954.pdf: 5956396 bytes, checksum: 00e5961b8c5182b04c272a41f666c5de (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IEA/D / Escola Politecnica, Universidade de Sao Paulo - POLI/USP