Probing energy transport in atomic and nanoscale junctions

Understanding energy transport at the atomic and nanoscale junctions is of great interest to reveal novel transport phenomena at the fundamental limit, and is expected to be critical to developing a variety of technologies ranging from nanoelectronics, photonics, to thermoelectrics and photovoltaics. In contrast to the extensive studies of charge and electronic properties at the nanoscale, the energy transport properties of materials and devices ranging in size from the atomic and molecular scale to the realm of a few nanometers, have remained largely unexplored due to experimental challenges. In my presentation, I will describe the experimental progress we made on the development of the experimental technique for reliably accessing energy transport properties in nanojunctions down to the atomic and single molecule scale.