Picosecond time-resolved X-ray diffraction has been used to study the nanoscale thermal transportation dynamics of bare gold nanocrystals and thiol-based self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-coated integrated gold nanocrystals on a SiO2 glass substrate. A temporal lattice expansion of 0.30-0.33% was observed in the bare and SAM-coated nanocrystals on the glass substrate; the thermal energy inside the gold nanocrystals was transported to the contacted substrate through the gold-SiO2 interface. The interfacial thermal conductivity between the single-layered gold nanocrystal film and the SiO2 substrate is estimated to be 45 MW m(-2) K(-1) from the decay of the Au 111 peak shift, which was linearly dependent on the transient temperature. For the SAM-coated gold nanocrystals, the thermal dissipation was faster than that of the bare gold nanocrystal film. The thermal flow from the nanocrystals to the SAM-coated molecules promotes heat dissipation from the laser-heated SAM-coated gold nanocrystals. The thermal transportation of the laser-heated SAM-coated gold nanocrystal film was analyzed using the bidirectional thermal dissipation model.
Keywords: nanocrystal; thermal conductance; thermal flow; time-resolved X-ray diffraction.