Thermal conductance quantum

In physics, the thermal conductance quantum g 0 describes the rate at which heat is transported through a single ballistic phonon channel. It is given by:

g 0 = π 2 k B 2 T 3 h ≈ ( 9.456 × 10 − 13 W / K 2 ) T .

The thermal conductance of any electrically insulating structure that exhibits ballistic phonon transport is a positive integer multiple of g 0 . The thermal conductance quantum was first measured in 2000. These measurements employed suspended silicon nitride nanostructures that exhibited a constant thermal conductance of 16 g 0 at temperatures below approximately 0.6 kelvin.

For ballistic electrical conductors, the electron contribution to the thermal conductance is also quantized as a result of the electrical conductance quantum and the Wiedemann–Franz law.