Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 87: Solid-liquid interfaces: Structure, spectroscopy
O 87.8: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 16:45–17:00, TRE/PHYS
Heat transfer across nanometre-sized water meniscus — •Oscar Mateos1, Ruben Lopez2, Pablo Martinez1,3, Guilherme Vilhena1, Nicolas Agrait2,4, and Juan Carlos Cuevas3,4 — 1Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM-CSIC), 28049 Madrid, Spain — 2Departmento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain — 3Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain — 4Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Heat transfer in nanoscale gaps is of key relevance for a variety of technologies. Recent experiments have reported contradictory results shedding doubts about the mechanisms for heat exchange in nanometre-sized gaps. 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, enabling 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 which cannot be explained with standard heat transfer mechanisms. Through non-equilibrium molecular dynamic simulations, we elucidate that these anomalous signals are due to thermal conduction through water menisci that form between tip and sample under customary operation conditions.
Keywords: Water; Capillarity; Molecular dynamics; Heat transport