Soft materials exhibit excellent flexibility and structural diversity. These characteristics are important for applying soft materials as command thermal systems especially at the microscale. In the structure of soft materials, anisotropy in thermophysical properties such as thermal diffusivity is usually observed, and changes in structure cause changes in macroscopic thermophysical properties. By clarifying the time-dependent changes in thermophysical properties associated with transitions of crystal structures and orientation in molecular systems, it is possible to not only understand the mechanisms of materials as thermal functional media, but also gain fundamental insight into the dynamics of soft materials.
Temperatrue wave analysis (TWA) is one of the common methods for determining the thermal diffusivity and thermal effusivity of soft materials. This method enables in-situ measurement of thermophysical properties in dynamical processes by measuring the phase delay and amplitude decay of the thermal response of a sample that is periodically heated. This method is widely applied to microscale transition phenomena, such as phase transitions in liquid crystals and microscale structural transition of soft crystals. This study presents exemplary results of TWA method, with a particular focus on in-situ measurements of thermal diffusivity and thermal effusivity during structural changes. The capability of TWA method analyzing dynamic phenomena in soft material is also discussed. It also discusses the ability of the TWA method to analyse dynamic phenomena in soft materials.
Keywords:Temperatrue wave analysis (TWA), thermal diffusivity, thermal conductivity, thermal effusivity, phase transition.
Publication Date: 2025-01-25