Beyond graphene, the layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have gained considerable attention due to their unique properties. Herein, we review the lattice dynamic and thermal properties of monolayer TMDs, including their phonon dispersion, relaxation time, mean free path (MFP), and thermal conductivities. In particular, the experimental and theoretical studies reveal that the TMDs have relatively low thermal conductivities due to the short phonon group velocity and MFP, which poses a significant challenge for efficient thermal management of TMDs-based devices. Importantly, recent studies have shown that this issue could be largely addressed by connecting TMDs and other materials (such as metal electrode and graphene) with chemical bonds, and a relatively high interfacial thermal conductance (ITC) could be achieved at the covalent bonded interface. The ITC of MoS₂/Au interface with chemical edge contact is more than 10 times higher than that with physical side contact. In this article, we review recent advances in the study of TMD-related ITC. The effects of temperature, interfacial vacancy, contact orientation, and phonon modes on the edge-contacted interface are briefly discussed.

Thermal conductivity of nanowires (NWs) is a crucial criterion to assess the operating performance of NWs-based device applications, such as in the field of heat dissipation, thermal management, and thermoelectrics. Therefore, numerous research interests have been focused on controlling and manipulating thermal conductivity of one-dimensional materials in the past decade. In this review, we summarize the state-of-the-art research status on thermal conductivity of NWs from both experimental and theoretical studies. Various NWs are included, such as Si, Ge, Bi, Ti, Cu, Ag, Bi₂Te₃, ZnO, AgTe, and their hybrids. First, several important size effects on thermal conductivity of NWs are discussed, such as the length, diameter, orientation, and cross-section. Then, we introduce diverse nanostructuring pathways to control the phonons and thermal transport in NWs, such as alloy, superlattices, core-shell structure, porous structure, resonant structure, and kinked structure. Distinct thermal transport behaviors and the associated underlying physical mechanisms are presented. Finally, we outline the important potential applications of NWs in the fields of thermoelectrics and thermal management, and provide an outlook.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have become a hot study topic in recent years due to their outstanding electronic, optical, and thermal properties. The unique band structures of strong in-plane chemical bonds and weak out-of-plane van der Waals (vdW) interactions make 2D materials promising for nanodevices and various other applications. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful and non-destructive characterization tool to study the properties of 2D materials. In this work, we review the research on the characterization of 2D materials with Raman spectroscopy. In addition, we discuss the application of the Raman spectroscopy technique to semiconductors, superconductivity, photoelectricity, and thermoelectricity.

With the size reduction of nanoscale electronic devices, the heat generated by the unit area in integrated circuits will be increasing exponentially, and consequently the thermal management in these devices is a very important issue. In addition, the heat generated by the electronic devices mostly diffuses to the air in the form of waste heat, which makes the thermoelectric energy conversion also an important issue for nowadays. In recent years, the thermal transport properties in nanoscale systems have attracted increasing attention in both experiments and theoretical calculations. In this review, we will discuss various theoretical simulation methods for investigating thermal transport properties and take a glance at several interesting thermal transport phenomena in nanoscale systems. Our emphasizes will lie on the advantage and limitation of calculational method, and the application of nanoscale thermal transport and thermoelectric property.

We review experimental and theoretical results on thermal transport in semiconductor nanostructures (multilayer thin films, core/shell and segmented nanowires), single-and few-layer graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide, and black phosphorus. Different possibilities of phonon engineering for optimization of electrical and heat conductions are discussed. The role of the phonon energy spectra modification on the thermal conductivity in semiconductor nanostructures is revealed. The dependence of thermal conductivity in graphene and related two-dimensional (2D) materials on temperature, flake size, defect concentration, edge roughness, and strain is analyzed.

A clear understanding and proper control of interfacial thermal transport is important in nanoscale devices. In this review, we first discuss the theoretical methods to handle the interfacial thermal transport problem, such as the macroscopic model, molecular dynamics, lattice dynamics, and quantum transport theories. Then we discuss various effects that can significantly affect the interfacial thermal transport, such as the formation of chemical bonds at interface, defects, interface roughness, strain, substrates, atomic species, mass ratios, and structural orientations. Then importantly, we analyze the role of inelastic scattering at the interface, and discuss its application in thermal rectifications. Finally, the challenges and promising directions are discussed.

In recent years, two-dimensional boron sheets (borophene) have been experimentally synthesized and theoretically proposed as a promising conductor or transistor with novel thermal and electronic properties. We first give a general survey of some notable electronic properties of borophene, including the superconductivity and topological characters. We then mainly review the basic approaches, thermal transport, as well as the mechanical properties of borophene with different configurations. This review gives a general understanding of some of the crucial thermal transport and electronic properties of borophene, and also calls for further experimental investigations and applications on certain scientific community.

The recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) layered material phosphorene has attracted considerable interest as a promising p-type semiconducting material. In this article, we review the recent advances in numerical studies of the thermal properties of monolayer phosphorene and phosphorene-based heterostructures. We first briefly review the commonly used first-principles and molecular dynamics (MD) approaches to evaluate the thermal conductivity and interfacial thermal resistance of 2D phosphorene. Principles of different steady-state and transient MD techniques have been elaborated on in detail. Next, we discuss the anisotropic thermal transport of phosphorene in zigzag and armchair chiral directions. Subsequently, the in-plane and cross-plane thermal transport in phosphorene-based heterostructures such as phosphorene/silicon and phosphorene/graphene is summarized. Finally, the numerical research in the field of thermal transport in 2D phosphorene is highlighted along with our perspective of potentials and opportunities of 2D phosphorenes in electronic applications such as photodetectors, field-effect transistors, lithium ion batteries, sodium ion batteries, and thermoelectric devices.

Thermal transport in silicon nanowires (SiNWs) has recently attracted considerable attention due to their potential applications in energy harvesting and generation and thermal management. The adjustment of the thermal conductivity of SiNWs through surface effects is a topic worthy of focus. In this paper, we briefly review the recent progress made in this field through theoretical calculations and experiments. We come to the conclusion that surface engineering methods are feasible and effective methods for adjusting nanoscale thermal transport and may foster further advancements in this field.

This review summarizes the current studies of the thermal transport properties of one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanomaterials and nanoarchitectures. Considering different hybridization states of carbon, emphases are laid on a variety of 1D carbon nanomaterials, such as diamond nanothreads, penta-graphene nanotubes, supernanotubes, and carbyne. Based on experimental measurements and simulation/calculation results, we discuss the dependence of the thermal conductivity of these 1D carbon nanomaterials on a wide range of factors, including the size effect, temperature influence, strain effect, and others. This review provides an overall understanding of the thermal transport properties of 1D carbon nanomaterials and nanoarchitectures, which paves the way for effective thermal management at nanoscale.